Spring Thunder
by SassySizzleMonster
Summary: Sometimes the most inexplicable and fantastical creatures end up being humans themselves, and Nifry Scamander isn't quite sure what to make of that. [OC Insert; Marauders Era; Regulus x OC; Snape x OC]
1. One Nifry Scamander

**One Nifry Scamander**

* * *

 _1972_

Nifry couldn't help the nightmares any more than she could help any other cases of her own brand of accidental magic—even those that weren't entirely without purpose.

She wasn't sure if the sights she saw behind her eyes were real; she didn't know if they were her imagination just actively trying to scare the absolute crap out of her, or if it was . . . somehow something tangible? Something that had already happened once upon a time, but not to her. To someone else entirely different, but through their eyes.

There was a window in her mind's eye open to a strange No-Maj realm, and while it could be misconstrued as something imaginary, Nifry had grown up with magic everywhere around her. The idea that something as strange as this _wasn't_ magic felt intrinsically wrong.

She spent half her time in a suitcase with her father caring and spending most of her remembered life with creatures of such rapport and incredulity that to her, nothing was impossible.

To see such vivid visions with the detailed faces of people she had never seen before, and most likely, would never meet or meet again, as she had taken to understanding it. To see heart wrenching and intimate scenes that she felt belonged to another person right behind her eyelids when she was at her most unguarded, only to snap awake to act upon it and find there was nothing going on in the first place. That she had been dozing. Those are just a few of the things she saw.

Only, in these 'dreams' as she called them, she could hear things, almost scent the air around her as if everything she experienced was as visceral as real life. Some of these dreams felt like memories, but detached, they didn't belong to her. Others, on a different hand, gave her the gut feeling that they were possibilities, and might not have even happened. Yet.

Perhaps, though, her mother was right and she just had an inflated head for imagination. Her mother didn't think anything of it, but of course who would? The Goldstein's and the Scamander's didn't have any Seer blood, and it was unlikely that it was anything like that concerning Nifry.

As it were, Niffella Scamander—the only daughter of Newt and Tina Scamander—sat with her elbows on her knees overlooking the demiguise enclosure and wondered. She wondered on her oddities, and the strange sense that something _big_ was going to happen, was _already_ happening. Something life changing.

And in fact she would be correct, but not in any obvious way. To her, at least.

She wasn't surprised when she saw her father's shadow and next the curled mop of his thick graying sand colored hair, right before the ground crunched beneath his feet to alert her. She'd already been looking between the curtain of her hair, but she forced herself to raise her head to greet his soft blue green eyes with her own—the same ones they shared.

Smiling at his hesitant expression, and the almost hurried way he sat next to her causing a janky fall to his butt, he had but one moment of silence before clearing his throat. She wouldn't tell any who asked her, but she secretly found her father's eccentricities entertaining. Especially when her mother, who by comparison lived and breathed normalcy, was involved.

At the moment, thoughts of visions and dreams were not on the table. What was, however, was just another one of her parents odd fights that weren't really fights but certainly something. For her mother's part she hadn't once insisted that her school of choice was better than her father's. Instead she had spent Nifry's entire life quietly advertising Ilvermorny, while her father was a bit more open about his intentions of Hogwarts. Although he didn't seem to see it in that light.

"Did you decide on the school you want to attend?" he asked, and she cocked him a raised brow.

"I thought mom said it was _my_ decision and that neither of you could influence that." Mom _had_ said that, and then had gone on to make points on each of Nifry's choices, which, forgetting the rest, was plainly between Hogwarts and Ilvermorny. It was a tough decision to make for a girl who hadn't really ever made any major decisions for herself in as long as she could think.

Still, she agreed with her parents that it should be _her_ decision in the end, seeing as it would be where she'd spend the majority of her formative years.

Newt's expression was wholly sheepish and his eyes widened with the effect of being caught red handed, causing her to laugh before playfully shoving at her father's leg. She wasn't sure if her dad could even make a sly expression, but she assumed the next grin he gave her was as close as it got.

"It is, but I thought I should just ask, you know, in preparation."

She shrugged her shoulders, her mood plummeting at that.

A part of her wanted to stay with her family and just learn everything there was to learn about fantastical creatures from her father and do as he had done. It wasn't even that she _had_ to graduate from any school. Nifry had never even been to a real school before, let alone thought about what that would mean and had always been taught by her mother when they weren't working alongside the beasts they kept. If she were honest, she didn't really see the point of schooling if her dream job would be to continue doing what she had already been doing from birth.

You didn't need a degree to be a magizoologist, you needed heart.

But Tina had wanted more for Nifry, wanted her to build strong friendships and have fun adventures. The kind that her mom wanted for their child. For a girl like Nifry though, this wasn't exciting in the least. It just felt strange.

Really, as a person, Nifry didn't like change. Nor did she appreciate the sense of loss she would be feel from being away from the beasts she grew up with, saw more like family. She would miss them all very much—and that did include the _Nifflers_ , her namesake, the cheeky bastards.

Some didn't live as long as humans did, or some lived so long and were on their last legs that they could drift at any moment, and where would she be when they passed? At _school_ , unable to say her goodbyes. For her, that thought was heartbreaking.

"Can't I just learn all there is to learn from you?" Nifry couldn't hold that note of hope back from her small voice, and watched as her father, weathered in his greying age, dropped his own shoulders.

"If I thought it best I would, little niffler," he paused, thinking, "but there are things that I, nor your mother can teach you. Things that have to be experienced, not taught. Grown from. We can't give you that, not here."

Finding all she could do was sigh, she leaned into his side, and the two watched the animals go about their day around the shifting enclosures.

At the moment they had a herd of hippogriffs they were raising for some school in France she couldn't pronounce, and other assorted creatures both near extinction and needing protection. It was as it always was, doing the best they could to relocate or protect the animals that sometimes couldn't protect themselves. It was best to remember that for some this would be their always home, and for others, this would be only temporary.

Especially for the demiguise that chose that moment to appear.

Gimble was the perfect example of a poor creature that had been taken for the purpose of something she thought terrible. He'd been harvested to make invisibility cloaks, and had been rescued by a nice wizard who was like her father, but didn't have the necessary know hows on caring for a demiguise. Not everyone did, as they were rare and hard to catch in the first place, which had made him being here so noteworthy.

For her father, it had probably brought back memories he had with a demiguise he had named Dougal.

Still, he was rarely seen and it'd been weeks since they'd received him. Judging from the way he'd been when they found him, it would be weeks still until he was strong enough to be on his own.

Nifry felt an odd kinsmanship with the beast, something about their ability to see into the future, their eyes glowing a bright blue under the effects of prophecy reminded herself of . . . well, herself. It also made her think about the possibilities her own life had.

With that thought in mind, she took the matter at hand seriously for that moment; thought of her older brother who had gone to Ilvermorny in his youth, and of her father who truly believed in the greatness of his alma mater, despite his questionable as well as illustrious history with the institution. It wasn't just that, however, that made up her mind.

It was also the sense of some unknown purpose, the nearly tangible instinct in her heart telling her what she had already known.

"Dad, I want to go to Hogwarts."

It was said on a surprisingly certain breath, despite not realizing she was saying it all.

When it was in the air, at first her heart had stuttered in anxiety, and then she felt a fraction of the happiness her father expressed in his answering grin. A smile that was perhaps even brighter than a thunderbird.

* * *

"What all do we need?" Tina asked, and her nose ticked at the materials listed on the paper Nifry handed to her.

"We have all the copies we could ever want of that," Tina at first remarked, most likely noting her husband's entry to the syllabus, right before nodding her head in quiet speculation. She made little ticking marks as she looked it over, then, as no-nonsense as she could be, rested the paper on her hip and cocked a look Nifry's, and Newt's way.

"I'll get the books, we have the rest at home. So, how about you both head onto the wand shopping?"

"Roger," Newt and Nifry said together, and the two shared a secret grin before they waved and departed from her mom.

On the way to Ollivander's, Newt made idle conversation about his surety that Ollivander could provide the sort of wand someone in America wouldn't. It made her think of her aunt who had recommended a few wand makers who she thought would be fit better to provide Nifry with a top quality life long companion. Mom had agreed, but seeing as she was going to Hogwarts, Newt wanted her to have the full experience he had in growing up.

She missed Aunt Queenie, the woman was always so comforting to be around, even if she could peer inside your head any time she wanted and would often rather talk to the thoughts there at the surface than to any words you were actually saying. It didn't unnerve her like she supposed it should have. More it made everything far easier than putting something out into the open.

But enough about her aunt.

Nifry pressed closer to her dad when he opened the front door to Ollivander's, nodding politely to another family that was just stepping out.

It was a woman and a man with two boys, each with dark features and pale faces. The woman remained impassive and assertive as they pushed out first before Newt or Nifry could walk further in. The man simply pressed his hand against the taller boy's shoulder with a frown marring his otherwise handsome face. The youngest boy had a soft smile while holding onto the box in his hand while the eldest looked just more aloof than anything.

They waited for them to pass before entering, and headed for the front of the shop where Garrick Ollivander was doing what she thought was taking stock as he shuffled behind his desk.

Newt stepped forward, "Uh, hello, sir, Mr. Ollivander."

"Ah," Mr. Ollivander murmured, looking up to see the two of them walking forward. "Mr. Scamander? I've not seen you for a well long time."

Newt chuckled, his body easing as he waved Nifry forward. "I'd like to see if we can find a match for my daughter," he said, his voice proud.

Nifry blushed but had enough voice to say, "Hello, Mr. Ollivander, I'm Niffella Scamander. Pleased to meet you."

"Ah, another Scamander. Always a joy to work with you lot."

Mr. Ollivander turned away from them and flicked his own wand to the side and she watched as a few boxes popped out from along the long walls and drifted over. Once in hand, he lifted the top off and handed a sleek, ornate wand to Nifry, who took it and promptly shook her head before he could even tell her what it was.

She could feel the way her magic wrapped around it, but she didn't feel any sense of connection. If anything, she felt a bit uneasy with it in her hand, like she was on unfamiliar footing.

"Give it a flick, just to be sure," Ollivander instructed, and humouring the man, she lightly waved the wand around. When a few of the boxes dove forward and nearly hit her in the arm, she quickly set the wand on the desk and backed away in surprise.

He chuckled, rather than getting upset and smiled before handing her another. When it hit her palm, she wanted to shake her head again, but saw Ollivander nod his head her way. She gave it a good whirl, and when one of the overhead lamps exploded, she cringed once more.

Newt pressed his warm hand into her shoulder, nearly sending her jumping.

"It may take a while is all," he said, and she sent him a sheepish nod.

"What was that last one?" she asked Mr. Ollivander in curiosity as he came back with a few more boxes.

"That was rowan with a core of phoenix feather. The other one was alder with dragon heartstring. This next one is walnut with the same."

"Ah," she said, and took the wand handed to her. "How do you know which wand will be right for the customer?"

She flicked her wrist, and when nothing happened, dropped it on the desk. The wand probably didn't like her one bit.

"It's magic, I assure you," Mr. Ollivander said with soft laughter, and he winked for the added mystery. Nifry found herself smiling, and continued to wonder as they went through a few more wands.

"I have a question, Mr. Ollivander," Newt proposed.

"Yes, Mr. Scamander?"

"If I were to give you a something would you be able to fashion something out of that?"

Mr. Ollivander was quiet for a moment, considering who exactly he was talking to, and cocked his head. "It would depend. You may not think it, but there is an art to fashioning wands, and the core does matter. I've found there are some things that work best. So what sort of core are we talking?"

"Thunderbird tailfeather," Newt replied, and Nifry sent an alarmed look his way.

She wondered if this was Frank's feather, the bird her father used to talk about when he reminisced about some of his past charges. Sometimes creatures have a way of knowing your intents for friendship, and sometimes they may gift you something of theirs to make sure you know that. Apparently Frank had given him several of his feathers before his departure, and it had been cared for throughout the long years ever since.

She was surprised her father would even part with one of them, seeing how sentimental he could be.

Mr. Ollivander's eyebrows shot up. "I've never had the pleasure of working with thunderbird, though I'd love the experience. I imagine it works similarly to the phoenix's feather, I find they tend to be made into more aloof wands, pickier, so it may not work how you'd like, but I'm up for the challenge, if you are." He paused. "I've heard of Shikoba Wolfe's work, perhaps I'll phone him."

They all watched as Nifry flicked another wand and an entire wall at their side shot out rows of boxes.

Mr. Ollivander laughed in good humor. "It would seem this may be the best option for Miss Scamander as well."

She scratched the back of her head before those words sunk in. Then she felt a sudden burst of excitement at the prospect of a wand made just for her.

 _Made_ for _me._ Nifry felt far more privilege then than Mr. Ollivander would making it.

"Now," Mr. Ollivander started, waving his wand lightly in the air to see the return of order to the shop around them. "Let's talk wood."

Seeing as there were no extra customer's about, he waved them to the back where he presumably kept his workshop, and wasn't surprised at all when that was the case.

It was a darkly lit room until they entered, and then fires lit the lamps overhead. Like the front of the store there were more thin, rectangular boxes along the wall, where wands rested, probably so unmatched or too old to have any likelihood of being placed. Aside from that, there was also piles of assorted wood piled up to the ceiling, impressive with the height the room sat at.

"I have a wide variety of different woods, as you can see," the wandmaker said, noting the way her eyes widened at the amount of it. "I want you to feel around, what pops out to you, Miss Scamander? Draws an internal piece of yourself."

His eyes narrowed in on her, as if he had thoughts of his own on what it might be.

She stepped forward at his behest and paced for a while before having a sudden pull to something at the very back. It was almost forgotten in the way it was set up, gathering dust at the edges of the pile. She wondered what that meant as she pointed and looked at Mr. Ollivander.

"Silver lime," he murmured, stepping forward to bring it out. With a quiet smile he asked, "So which are you? A seer or a legilimens?"

Entirely unbidden, Nifry felt a sweeping of chills along her back and forearms. She was sure she looked alarmed as she stared at Mr. Ollivander, mute.

Newt came to the rescue, unbeknownst to himself. "Does one have to be either of those things to have a draw to the wood? And how exactly does that work?" Naturally, he was curious, and had asked more for the answer than to save his daughter from any sort of scrutiny.

"For those who study wandlore it's known that silver lime has a history of choosing those with the innate gift for the more mysterious magics, that's not to say it's a definitive." He ran his hand the length of the log. "We used to sell a lot of these wands, but the fad died out when people realized one had to actually possess the gifts themselves to see any results in their practice. As for the draw of the wood, it's more the wood echoing a message to the responder, a call of sorts. Some wizards and witches have a natural affinity for only one sort, while others feel more inclined to a general variety."

Mr. Ollivander eyed her, an odd expression she hadn't seen on his face before crossing his features. He regarded her quietly before nodding his head.

"It seems Miss Scamander, you have found a singular match." His lips tipped into a small smile. "It will be a privilege of mine to make it for you. Let's just hope the thunderbird tailfeather works well with this wood. It might make it a bit temperamental, but perhaps you'd like that excitement."

"Thank you very much," Nifry said, a bright grin alighting her features. Her stomach tightened, and she felt her heart pick up with her giddiness. "And as long as the excitement doesn't mean exploding light bulbs, then that's okay."

"Hopefully no exploding _anything_ ," Newt quipped, and she looked at her father with a slight frown, thinking that hypocritical. He'd told her once upon a time that at one point in his life there had been a lot of action—action that included exploding things. He'd seemed to be a bit boastful of it too. And why wouldn't he be?

Her father was a hero in every sense of the word. He _had_ fought in a war, and he'd worked with dragons! And so many other creatures that involved exploding.

Nifry only realized it had been an attempt at a joke when Mr. Ollivander laughed, seeming to read from it what had flown over her head. Or he knew how awkward her father could be. They'd seemed a bit familiar, but something told her that Mr. Ollivander remembered every single person that stepped through his door.

The rest of their visit went much the same, and she wasn't at all surprised when her father pulled the aforementioned feather out of nowhere and handed it to the wandmaker. School wouldn't start for another few weeks yet, but Mr. Ollivander had still reassured them that she'd have it in hand before she had to go off, and if not he'd supply a temporary one.

She wasn't sure how well a temp would work with her record of sending boxes flying, so she hoped it was done in time. And that it was a match.

"That had taken a while," her mom said when they met up for ice cream that afternoon, and she'd looked at them curiously. "So let's see it."

"We're having one being made with Frank's feather," Nifry replied as she ate her treat.

Tina turned an inquiring stare Newt's way, and he mumbled a bit before saying, "I'd just feel a bit better with a piece of him with her."

At his tender response her mother's face softened, and she palmed her father's hand, who flipped it to entwine his fingers with hers. It was a silent reminder of their love that had Nifry smiling even more.

Maybe for some children it was a bit gross to see their parents interacting so sweetly, but Nifry had grown up with the subtle ways they expressed themselves. Neither of them were very much for words, and chose more to speak through their touch, with the way they looked at one another. So rather than being sickened by that, Nifry felt a sense of security.

It was as sweet as the ice cream she was slurping.

* * *

Mr. Ollivander had made good on his word, and thus when they came back a few weeks later—the day right before she'd have to get on the Hogwarts Express—he was waiting at the front desk with a warm smile on his face. An almost giddy feeling echoed from him to her, and it tripled the rate of her heart beat.

She waved, and this time her mother came forward first with her hand at the ready to shake Mr. Ollivander's.

"Hello, the name is Tina Scamander," she prefaced. "Thank you so much for working with us."

"It was my pleasure, Mrs. Scamander," Mr. Ollivander replied, shaking her hand and then slid the box on the desk Nifry's way as she approached.

Nifry sent a nervous look her parents way, who only seemed to smile at her hesitancy. Newt patted her on the shoulder, and stepped up with her, his support silent but there.

She couldn't lie to herself. It was a bit intimidating looking at the rectangular casing of her future friend.

She knew not everyone thought that wands had a sort of life to them, but they were magical and had aspects granted from the animal's cores that resided inside—and if it was anything Nifry knew, it was about magical creatures and their natural aspects. She also knew her parents wands very well, as she'd handled them a few times. They'd always had a different feeling than the other, like separate people. So, of course she had to wonder if her wand—the wand _made_ for her—would accept who she was. Allow her to be their partner, their friend.

To say she was a bit nervous was an understatement as she unboxed it right there in the shop. She held her breath, and then eyed the design with wide, impressed eyes.

The first thing she noticed was that it was very straight. The wood itself was a sleek and polished light silver that faded outwards to a soft white. Not anything she'd imagine silver lime would look like, but beautiful nonetheless. It reminded her of snow, but then she noticed the gold gilding that looked like dripped vines all along the body until it met the hilt.

For some reason, it made her think of lightning strikes the way the gold was welded in, and she realized then the true echo of what the design was for. It's likeness belonged to the thunderbird itself. White and gold.

She lost breath until her palm touched the smooth handle of her wand and the feeling that then met her became akin to seeing someone you thought you'd never have the chance to meet. It hit her first in her chest, and wormed its way throughout her entire body like sugar melting in hot tea.

Nifry gave a sigh of relief, and almost could tell the precise moment her wand accepted her back. It wasn't allegiance, though, more it was a sort of understanding. That they were now partners until otherwise stated. She was surprised when a spritz of electricity jumped from the tip of her wand and popped outwards in an almost uncanny response.

"Thank you so, _so_ much," she found herself whispering in awe, and looked up with a shaky grin. Then, unable to help the excitement bubbling forth, she cried out, "Mr. Ollivander you're a genius!"

He laughed, and winked before replying, "It was simply magic, my dear, and certainly my pleasure. I hope to be hearing all the sorts of mischief you get up in your time at school."

It was Newt who ruffled her curled mop of hair as her mom smiled brightly, her eyes pinching into a serene motherly expression.

When they stepped out of the shop, Nifry couldn't even stand to put the wand away, even under her sleeve. She just kept holding it, feeling a settling in her gut the longer it was in her hand.

"Your name is now Frank Jr. Scamander," she told her wand aloud. Newt laughed at that, a pleased as punch look finding its way to his face as they walked the streets of Diagon Alley.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for reading! c: Please R&R if you liked it, and follow and favorite it if this is your cup of tea!


	2. Sort of Destiny

**Sort of Destiny**

* * *

"You have Filibus with you right? We aren't forgetting him?"

Nifry sent a pointed look to her father, and thought of the barn owl she'd raised from an egg, thinking it was pretty obvious she wasn't going to be forgetting her feathered friend.

"Make sure to write us every week, or every day if you want. Just any time, really, we're only a pen away," Tina said, wringing her hands and overlooking her daughter with pursed lips and kneaded eyebrows. It was clear to Nifry what her real thoughts were.

She sighed. If they didn't want her to go, then why were they making her?

"I'll send you letters, Mom, so don't worry. But make sure to send me pictures of the baby kneazles, I don't want to miss out." Even though pictures couldn't replace seeing them every day, watching them grow from kittens that couldn't even walk on their own to fiercely independent creatures would at least give her some satisfaction.

She felt another sigh surface. She was going to miss home.

Tina chuckled, recognizing the real battle going on and patted the back of her hand before Nifry stepped onto the train, solemnly waving to her parents who each had a bit of mist in their eyes.

"I love you!" Tina called out, and Nifry shouted it back before stepping inside to find a seat—really, _anywhere_ to sit.

She was surprised with how spacious it all was, but then again she was early. For some reason she'd expected other early birds to be clamoring for seats, but there was generally no one about.

Nifry shrugged, and decided she liked the idea of being somewhere in the back of the train, just so she would have less possibility of having to deal with people. The thought almost made her cringe.

Growing up with parents who were getting up into their seventies didn't always make for a child who was used to being around other children. Having been home-schooled and raised pretty much with animals from the very beginning, she would be the first to admit she had issues with social settings.

She was perfectly fine with adults—it was other children that got to her.

It was a shame when not even an hour later she was interrupted in her perusing of a No-Maj book she'd picked up to humor herself on the long trip to Hogwarts.

"Is that _A Wrinkle in Time_?" a soft, high pitched voice asked. Nifry looked up to see a young girl her age in a short No-Maj dress and tights standing there, biting at her lower lip.

"Yes," she replied, and although she'd wanted to remain alone, she waved the girl forward. It was those damn manners her parents had instilled into her.

"How far along are you?" the girl asked as she took a seat across from her. Nifry shrugged, uncertain if she should admit she wasn't quite sure what was even happening in the story. It took someone being raised a No-Maj to really understand a book written by them, so it'd just been her curiosity that had made her get it. That and she thought the premise was interesting.

"I really liked Meg," the girl said before she received her answer.

"She is pretty interesting," Nifry supposed.

An awkward silence ensued, until the girl broke it with a cough.

"I'm Samantha Vince, by the way," she said, looking rather uncomfortable in her seat.

"Nifry Scamander." Acting cordial and hopefully not at all weird, she held out her hand and when Vince took it, they shook.

"I've just noticed, but your accent? It's American, right?"

Nifry nodded, "My mom is American, and I kind of grew up there." How did one explain that she'd lived a relatively nomadic life-style before this? Technically she was from everywhere.

Her family had always been a bit more settled in New York, but she'd been in and out of there so frequently she wasn't sure if she could actually say that's where she was from. She was _born_ in Eastern Africa, but that was because she had come early, and as always, as a surprise to her parents.

"That's so cool, I've always wanted to go overseas. I'm from boring Liverpool."

Nifry shook her head. "That's not boring at all." She really didn't know what constituted as boring, but she wasn't going to just let the girl bring herself down. That felt wrong to her. "I'm sure later on you'll be able to travel all over the world if you like."

"Thanks, Nifry."

She smiled. "You're welcome."

Conversation was a bit light after that, Vince having pulled out a book of her own. Though if Nifry were honest she was finding it harder to understand the intricacies of the multiple universes that was _A Wrinkle in Time_. Was she just stupid?

She was saved from having to read further when she heard another girl's voice at the door, and the _shh_ of it opening.

"Can we sit here?" The girl asked, and Nifry felt an odd sense in her stomach when their eyes met.

The intruder had long, vibrant red hair that swept down like a dolls, and eyes that looked like pure emeralds. She reminded her of the word life, and so as a direct contrast the boy behind her became death. With his nearly black eyes and the skin a white pallor, he certainly looked the part.

That sensation continued to build as she stared at the both of them, thinking them oddly familiar. But wasn't that crazy? She was sure she'd have remembered them if they'd met.

"Go ahead," Vince said, and got up to sit next to Nifry to give the other two room to sit next to each other. Nifry wanted to sigh, but at least it got her out of having to read any more of that No-Maj book.

"I'm Samantha Vince, all of us are first years, right?' Nifry eyed the distinctly colored neckties, deciding not to be the one to tell her that at least those two weren't. It was curious to see a Gryffindor being cordial with a Slytherin, but to each their own. She was glad to see friendships outside of the norm.

"We aren't, we're second years," the redhead replied, and looked at her pale friend with a smile. "I'm Lily Evans, and this is Severus Snape."

"Hello," Snape said, and locked his jaw after that. There was silence again.

Evans looked at Nifry inquiring, and that's when she remembered that she was still a person interacting with the world. It had been that strange sensation that had made her forget. "Oh, uh, I'm Nifry Scamander."

"Hello, Nifry," the redhead smiled and then her and Vince started talking about something or other while Nifry continued to get lost in those strange feelings in her stomach. It was like when she'd held Frankie yesterday, but different. This was like . . . _presque vu_ or something or other. But it definitely reminded her of magic.

Where had they met?

No, the answer was that they hadn't. So if they hadn't met, where did she know the girl from?

"What house do you hope to get into?" Evans asked the both of them, and Vince had immediately replied with Ravenclaw. It was kind of obvious now that Nifry thought of it, and for the girls sake she hoped she made it through.

"Maybe Hufflepuff," Nifry responded with a small smile aimed at the group. She didn't miss the slight look of revulsion on Snape's face when she said that, and almost wanted to laugh at it.

"Oh," Evans murmured. "Well, good luck you both."

"Thanks!" Vince exclaimed.

"Yeah, uh, thanks." Merlin, she was awkward. She'd probably gotten that from her father.

* * *

Nifry surprised herself by not being very nervous as she and the rest of her class stood in the middle of the dining hall between all the house tables leading up to the stage. Vince hadn't once let go of her arm, but that was okay, she was just nervous.

"I hope I get into Gryffindor," said a brown haired boy across from her.

"Gryffindor sucks," scoffed another boy from the side. "Slytherin is where it's at."

"No it's not, that's where all the evil people go."

"Slytherins aren't evil!"

"Children!" Professor McGonagall intoned, shooting the two boys disapproving stares. She waited for utmost silence before continuing. "Now, when I say your name, I want you to come up to be Sorted. First, Sophie Aaron."

A tall girl with springy hair and dark eyes strutted towards the chair and sat with enviable confidence.

McGonagall placed the hat atop her head and almost immediately it sang, "RAVENCLAW!"

The Ravenclaws immediately jumped into applause, and the girl stood with more grace than she'd had sitting down. Which was surprising.

Next came a few others, and each time they were called and Sorted the houses cheered for their newest members. It felt nice even just hear it for others. Professor McGonagall had told them that their houses would be their family for the next couple of years, and this had Nifry believing that.

"Regulus Black," McGonagall said, and a familiar boy left their dwindling group to sit on the chair. His face was like carved stone, though she remembered the smile he'd had at Ollivander's. He'd been the boy with the wand in his hand from her first visit, who had the slight buzz of happiness in receiving his friend, that soft, almost secret smile. The rest of his family had been much darker in contrast.

He wasn't smiling now, however. He looked rather stricken from what she could tell, and there was an air of reluctance she couldn't quite make out for. It was almost like he loathed to hear what the Hat would say.

It didn't take long, despite this, before the room rang with, "SLYTHERIN!"

The Slytherin table burst into raucous cheer, and the boy—Regulus Black—only clenched his jaw before a smirk lit his elegant features. It was strange to see such versions of him at odds. The soft smile when he'd received his wand, and this almost stone like caricature.

The names went on, until finally she heard her own.

"Niffella Scamander," McGonagall said, and she walked to where the Hat was with what she hoped looked like confidence.

With a quick breath she sat on the chair and felt her bones spring tingly sensations with her new anxiety. Why was she worried? It wasn't like she was going to be in any other place than Hufflepuff.

 _Ah,_ the Hat spoke to her, and she nearly jumped at the intrusion. _Dark things in your head, dark, dark things indeed._

She gulped. What was that supposed to mean?

 _Hm, quiet, smiley girl. Too soft for Slytherin, too willing to please, yet so brave of heart. Very brave, and a good mind despite those terrible visions of yours._

It suddenly worried her that he could see all those things like she was an book to be pawed at, things she'd never opened herself to give to _anyone_ , let alone a Hat with her future in his grasps.

 _Ah yes, don't be surprised. I know a Seer when I'm placed upon one. True Seer's even rarer, perhaps, but I see it. It'd be best for you to admit that to yourself._

She gulped. Again.

 _Worry not, girl, I've seen the heads of many great witches and wizards, and I've never once told another their secrets. Besides, it's not me you should worry about, these kinds of things come to life by themselves._

He paused, and she felt hands in her head, almost like her Aunt Queenie's when it was more obvious she was perusing past her surface thoughts. She didn't know whether or not to be irritated or comforted by the reminder of a woman she loved so much. This was an intrusion she hadn't welcomed. Or had she? She was sitting right there after all.

 _So . . . shall it be Gryffindor? No, no, you're brave but it's too quiet, too sincere. You don't have the drive to impress, that drive to prove yourself worthy to others._

But . . .

 _But you aren't complacent. You could be Gryffindor, have glory and strength of heart. It's in you, the nerve and thirst for adventure. It'll always be right there, waiting for you to pick it up._

She bit her lip, thinking of her mother who would have undoubtedly been a Gryffindor, but then she thought of her father. Newt had been a Hufflepuff, and so she'd wanted to be one as well.

 _You want to do great things, but you hide it from yourself, hide it behind your deep affections for your loved ones. It could be Gryffindor, but it could be Hufflepuff. You're certainly loyal, but you're not honest enough, so perhaps not._

He grumbled a bit, the effect in her head a bit odd to say the least. She herself felt just as conflicted as the Hat though, so she didn't know what to add. He went on an on between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor until she felt a bit dizzy, and antsy. Gryffindor felt a bit intimidating, but Hufflepuff was intimidating for a different set of reasons.

And that bit about her being a Seer? She had to talk to someone about it soon, but she didn't want to be called a liar, and didn't know exactly who she could turn to. Her parents? Her father worked with magical _creatures_ not anything to do with the future, but she had to admit it was all there.

But . . . weren't they just her imagination? How could she be sure that what she was seeing _was_ the future. How could she discern what was possible and what wasn't? All she had was the Hat telling her she was Seer.

It felt like hours before he finally said, _But, you're_ too _loyal, too loyal indeed, and that's what makes it,_ "HUFFLEPUFF!"

She felt a bit like she was in a dream as she realized she'd finally been Sorted. Then, Nifry felt a wave of tentative happiness as she stood from the seat to stride to where her new house rose in audacious cheer. She stretched her legs a bit from having sat there so long, and took her seat near an upperclassmen who smiled widely at her.

"That was a Hatstall, definitely," the upperclassmen next to her said, and she cocked her head a bit in question. She had no idea what a Hatstall was.

"Yeah, how long was it?" asked someone across from her, a girl with deep auburn hair and cornflower blue eyes.

"Five minutes and six seconds," called an older boy three seats away. His smile tipped to the side in a good-natured smirk, "I counted."

Cornflower rolled her eyes, and then looked at Nifry, "Welcome to the house, Hatstall."

"What is that exactly?" she asked, looking around in confusion.

Ilvermorny didn't have such things, seeing as they had statues doing the work the Hogwarts Hat did, but not in the same way. The student had the final say in the end whether they wanted to be in Wampus, Thunderbird, Pukwudgie, or Horned Serpent—but out of those statues that wanted the student.

If the Thunderbird statue had wanted her, she'd have picked that without any second thoughts. But for Hogwarts the Houses were a bit more political than Ilvermorny, so she supposed she was fine with a Hat picking for her. She was glad for Hufflepuff, them being the more benign and neutral out of all of the others.

"A Hatstall is when it takes a really long time for the Hat to pick. I can't remember when the last time was." Cornflower looked slightly piqued by her, which kind of made Nifry feel a bit uncomfortable.

"Maybe because you weren't even alive back then," the smirky guy retorted.

"Hey, Diggory, you back off," the girl griped without heat. The boy winked at her before they all turned back to Nifry. "Last one I think was Professor McGonagall herself, between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw."

"Oh, the Hat wasn't sure if I should be Gryffindor or Hufflepuff."

"Does that make you a Gryffinpuff?" the person next to her asked, he cocked her a considering look.

Nifry shrugged, "I don't think those exist." The room burst into more applause, well the Ravenclaws as they received another person, a girl with rounded glasses, and an awkward countenance.

"Samantha Vince," she perked up, hoping for the girls entry to Ravenclaw.

She smiled when they received another bouts of cheers for the girl, and waved to her as Vince met her eyes with a bright grin. It seemed they had both got what they wanted.

* * *

Nifry liked the other girls in her dorm room, liked them because they were all so nice and caring. She couldn't imagine a warmer place than somewhere by the kitchen where the Hufflepuff common room and dormitories were. Sometimes the House Elves would come and greet the students, and it was always nice to see the beings who took such great care of the school.

There was also Mariah Clearwater, the girl with auburn hair from earlier. She and Jason Diggory were both Prefects and had been very kind to her. Then there were the two other girls she was rooming with, Jennifer Chaput, and Leslie Fischer. They were a bit more easy to talk to despite them being her age, but she found herself not being as scared as she thought she'd be.

She'd just hoped she hadn't come across as awkward in any way.

That night she'd penned a letter to her father and mother detailing her day, and spoke with Filibus, her barn owl, and Frankie, her wand. She didn't include the stuff about her being a "Seer", mainly because she wanted to have more concrete evidence other than, "I have weird dreams you guys know about and they're so vivid it's like I'm there."

"Apparently there's things like Hatstall's, isn't that weird?" she mumbled to Filibus to distract herself, who cocked his head at her in question. "I'm one of them, I guess. Professor McGonagall even called me up to talk after dinner was over to tell me all about it. It doesn't mean I'm not Hufflepuff, but it just means I have some of the qualities that make me a bit like a Gryffindor."

She dropped her pen and looked at Fili with a smile before rubbing at the soft curve of his neck. He leaned into her touch and made a few noises of fervent approval. He might not understand the exact words she was saying, but he sure understood the meaning of affection.

"Do you think that one person can only be solely one House and nothing else?" She didn't know why she asked, and wasn't sure what the answer was. Judging from the lack of care Filibus regarded her, it appeared, neither did he.

Pulling out her wand she talked with him for a bit, wondering what the next day would be like; if she would enjoy classes, or meet people that would be her friends. Maybe she'd actually like Hogwarts. Maybe it'd actually be _fun_.


	3. Of Moon and Gloom

**Of Moon and Gloom**

 _Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes._

 _Friedrich Nietzsche_

Regulus gave an inaudible sigh as he set his books down beside his (sort of) friends, Jacob Runcorn and Evan Rosier. He wasn't looking forward to this class in the slightest—it being transfiguration and all. Still, he couldn't go home without at least an E—and even that would be pushing it—so he had to pay attention.

Though he supposed he couldn't have done worse than Sirius. But he didn't _want_ to do worse than him. He wasn't sure if he wanted to do better, either, but _someone_ had to make their parents proud. It was just too bad he had to play the role meant for his older brother, and there was an intense anger he felt for that. Because it wasn't fair. Being the perfect son was supposed to be _his_ job.

And now it wasn't.

When Sirius had been sorted into Gryffindor he'd been surprised, well and truly surprised. Sirius Black had once embodied the family name; superior, pure of blood, and strong in that conviction. He'd always been the person Regulus had looked up to, felt at home with while their parents remained cold and distant, the person that stayed up at night and told him all about the greatness of Slytherin. And now his memories were colored a new hue, one he wasn't comfortable with.

They'd used to talk and play with each other, make jokes and do as brothers did, even when they hated one another. He'd thought . . . well he'd thought he'd known him.

But Sirius—Sirius had _changed_.

It'd happened unbeknownst to Regulus, but the moment his brother had left for that year, it was like he'd become a different person. At first he hadn't understood exactly why this upset him, why he felt a pinch in his chest that his brother was someone different. In that moment he'd been jolted with the realization that he'd been lied to all his life. And that had _infuriated_ him.

That his brother could have been one person, and then another just because of a change in scenery? It would have been preposterous a year ago. It would have been a _lie_ a year ago.

For some reason, maybe because he loved him, he forgave that. It upset him, but he'd understood the selfish desire to be unapologetically himself. If who Sirius was now was even that. Maybe if Regulus had been in his position he might have done the same. But still, he was helplessly upset with his brother.

And it wasn't because he was a Gryffindor.

He could forgive that, too.

It wasn't even a hard thing to swallow, it just was. His parents had a harder time understanding that their heir apparent was now a lion instead of a snake, but they were so set in their ways that it'd caused friction between them. Dinner's were quiet affairs; Sirius acted out in ways Regulus had never seen before Sirius' time at Hogwarts; there was now a shift in the air that made everything tense.

As a result, Regulus realized he understood the word family far more so than his brother, because he hadn't given in.

He was a snake, and he hadn't given in to selfishness.

His hand on his quill went lax when he realized how tightly he'd been gripping it. He released a soft, hidden breath and eased into his seat.

Regulus Black was perfect—he _had_ to be perfect.

It wasn't easy being Walburga Black's son, but it was easier when she wasn't being . . . well, like her usual self. And right now, from the last time he'd talked to her before leaving for Hogwarts she was being more contrite than usual.

So for his sake, and everyone else's, he had to be perfect. Absolutely perfect.

* * *

At first Nifry wasn't sure if she enjoyed classes. A few weeks in she'd tolerated her boredom. Longer than that, she held a quiet dislike for them.

There were lots of stuffy books she had to read, and quizzes that were a bit difficult for her when all she wanted to do was go outside and play. It didn't help that she had the tendency to daydream and stare off into the distance. That wasn't to say she didn't try, however. It's just sometimes something would steal her attention, and then she'd be a goner for the rest of class.

So it wasn't surprising to her in the least that she was already failing Charms, History of Magic, _and_ Transfiguration. It also wasn't a surprise that she currently had an O in Herbology and an E in Potions. She'd grown up learning the world around her, and in some cases making antidotes for venoms and healing medicines for just those moments something unexpected happened.

She couldn't even really blame her bad grades on the fact that she'd had random visions that hampered her ability to learn—or something.

Things had been relatively silent in that department since she'd received her wand, and she had to assume it was because Frankie was tempering whatever out of control magic she'd used to have. Or something like that. She didn't know if that meant she could summon any visions of her own will, but it was just a budding idea. She still wanted solid proof that she was in fact seeing the future before she did anything stupid. Like tell a teacher.

"What are you always thinking about?" her roommate, Leslie Fischer asked. Nifry liked the girl, they'd gotten along very well in comparison to her and Vince, although she was a bit intimidated by the girls beauty at first. Leslie hadn't seemed to realize she was the prettiest girl in their year, with her curly golden blonde hair and her wide ocean blue eyes.

Nifry looked up from her seat in the library and shrugged. "The future. I'm pretty sure my mom is gonna be upset with my grades, but I don't know how to bring them up before they get sent home." Maybe she was just stupid? She found herself frowning at the thought.

"Maybe I can help," Jennifer Chaput offered, setting her books down beside Nifry's and taking the vacant seat there. In comparison to Leslie, Jenny was a bit more scruffy with frizzy brown hair that went in every which way, and dull grey eyes that were usually narrowed in thought. Nifry still thought her pretty though. "I have an E in Transfiguration, and an A in Charms. Those are what you need help with right?"

"And History of Magic," Nifry grumbled, but found herself smiling. Her roommates were so kind.

"Oh I have an O there, that's easy peasy. Just pop open a book and read it, Nif."

"Yeah, that's like the easiest class. I have an O, too. Professor Binns just sleeps and expects you to repeat things verbatim, easy, right?" Leslie slung her arm around her shoulder and patted her arm reassuringly.

"But . . ." Nifry cringed, "It's so _boring_."

And that's what her main issue was with school.

There was no excitement to it; just go to class, hang out with fellow students and try not to get into trouble. That was it. She supposed she did like learning more about other magical aspects that came with being a witch, but she didn't think that was enough for her not to rescind her dislike. (Maybe she was just more upset that she was bad at school, than it not being any fun, but she couldn't admit that.)

She found herself missing her dad's suitcase full of all of their magical creatures. She missed taking care of them and loving on them when they wanted it and her chest hurt thinking about the last set of pictures she'd received. It had been so precious seeing Liam, one of their hippogriffs and Goliath their baby orphan nundu snuggling. _Snuggling!_

 _That_ was where the adventure lied, and she wasn't glad she'd decided to be tricked into attending Hogwarts.

The only saving grace were the people.

"Of course it's boring, it's history. But we have to work hard, yeah?" Leslie winked and batted at Nifry's arm.

She did have to admit she did like the feeling of having someone other than her family members be her friend.

"That's true," Nifry mumbled, and for the rest of the evening her fellow Hufflepuff's helped her at least cram in a bit of extra knowledge she'd blanked on before. At least there was that.

* * *

 _She was walking underneath a silver moonlight, and her name wasn't Nifry, it was something else. Something like Lupin, Lupus? She wasn't sure. All she knew was that her body was wrought with unfamiliar tingles—no, they weren't familiar to_ her _, but they were familiar to Lupin. Reme. Remus. Was that her name? Remus Lupin?_

 _She didn't know, but the tingling in her bones was bordering on painful as she crossed past the gamekeeper's hut—Hagrid's hut—and into the direction of the Forbidden Forest . . . Why was she going there? First years weren't allowed there. But that didn't seem to matter to who she was as she quickened her pace._

 _There was a heat inside of her now as she looked up to the path of the moon and that call to join the night sent her to her knees just before she could cross into the dark foliage. She had to keep herself secret, she knew that, feared the day someone would find out._

 _Still, as she hunkered down to the ground, she only wished she had someone with her—to make it easier, because none of this was easy. It was_ hard _, and it was painful, so, so painful. He loathed the moment his body would crack, the moment his heart would splinter and he'd cry out in grief for something he could never get back._

 _And he just wanted it to be easy._ But _, that was selfish! He'd_ hurt _someone if they knew. They'd end up dead, because he couldn't control who he was becoming, and that frightened him more than he scorned the idea of being lonely._

 _And it was with that thought the beast tore free._

* * *

Nifry would have opened her eyes, but they'd already been open by the time she came back to herself. Back to _her_.

She looked around, dazed and confused as she shook her body clean of that awful feeling. Shook clean the pain of her skin tearing from her bones, and her body contorting into something abstract and powerful, but so, so terrifying.

She wasn't in her bed, that's the first thing she noted and she struggled to remember exactly what she'd been doing before . . . well, before. But that wasn't at the forefront of her mind. Instead, it raced with a different set of questions.

Had that been a future vision? It felt like some of the ones she'd had, where she wasn't herself, and it felt like something happening, but not? She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and thought that it was strange for her to be walking around late at night. Because she wasn't in her bed, and she wasn't in the library, in fact she wasn't even inside. How had she gotten there?

Had she done that before with other visions? Moved while she was in them? How had no one noticed her leave!?

When her eyes adjusted to the low light in the night, she realized another thing. She was in the sundial garden, or otherwise the stone circle right by the Forbidden Forest.

On a whim she looked up towards the sky, and blinked. The moon was full.

She shivered, wrapping her robes further around herself for whatever warmth she could and started on her way trudging down to the outskirts of the forest. Then she stopped herself, and thought, _why am I doing this?_ They'd been told not to go inside the forest as it was, after all, the _forbidden_ forest. Yet she was there? Going against the rules?

Nifry nodded to herself. She had to see if she could see someone turn into whatever she'd been in that vision. She had her guesses, but she wanted to be certain. So yes, she was going to go ahead.

She might not have known what was going on, but she knew this was her chance to confirm that she was at least seeing a bit of the future—this one possibly moments before. But what if it wasn't the future, but something already happening and she'd somehow slipped into someone else's head? And what if she wasn't a Seer, but someone who had crazy sleepwalking dreams where she thought she was a werewolf? Then that would be her answer, she supposed.

Merlin, was she thinking of the possibility that there was a _werewolf_ around here? If she was, she didn't know if she should be afraid of there being one around or the fact that her mind liked to dream up horrific things.

That decided her. She had to, even if it was against the rules. To confirm if she was crazy or not.

Because she knew that werewolves weren't all that bad—depending on the person—she wasn't too worried about their human side. Her father had been responsible for the werewolf registry, after all. So she also knew that around this time with the night open like it was now, they became a different sort of beast.

But Nifry was used to fantastical creatures of all sorts, the deadly dangerous kind, and the charming fluffy ones, too. Heck, she was born on a rescue mission for hordes of captured nifflers, and _named_ for them—though maybe a niffler wasn't as hardcore as a werewolf, she thought that had to count for something.

"Don't be a coward," she whispered to herself, then she went further in, trailing after her remembered path.

It didn't take her long to travel the same way she'd gone before—because even in the vision she hadn't gotten very far before the change occurred—before she heard the sounds of moaning, and then a familiar, painful roar that had given way to her waking up. When everything hadn't made sense at all.

The sound was the same, she realized. It was exactly as she'd heard it, so it had in fact been the future she'd seen. Almost like a demiguise, she'd seen something moments before it occurred. And now her arms were chilled, and her breathing was coming faster when she made another revelation. _This was real_.

And not just real, but as in this was occurring at that very moment, and she wasn't just watching a vision take place, she was _there_. In the flesh. Whatever happened afterwards she couldn't account for, so perhaps this was the night she got herself eat by a _werewolf_.

She moved farther away from the direction of the beast, feeling a confirmation finally take place inside of her. Now she just had to get away, hopefully he hadn't caught her scent, but _—_

"Hey!" someone whisper screamed, and she whirled around to see three boys wearing equally disturbed faces and Gryffindor ties. One of them had a _lumos_ on their wand, but it wasn't very bright so she could just make out a bit. They all looked around her age, maybe older, but each were crouched and huddled by a bush. The one in the middle waved her over, and she tried her best to walk towards them without sound.

"What are you doing around here, Hatstall?" the middle one who wore glasses and had messy black hair piled on top like a mop, asked. Nifry didn't question the nickname; everyone who didn't know her real name or didn't care to, used hatstall as her designated marker. She still wasn't sure if she liked it or not.

"I honestly don't know," she replied, "but there's a werewolf over there." Why had she felt the need to point out the obvious? Well, was it obvious? She looked at their answering expressions.

They looked at her like it was.

"Yeah, we heard," the taller one with longer hair and with a bit more of an elegant look, said, rolling his eyes at her. "Now shouldn't you be going?"

"Shouldn't you?" Nifry didn't know where that had come from, but she knew one thing for certain. Neither of them should've been outside of their dorms. She looked at their uniforms. None of them were Prefects. And now she was curious. Could there have been a reason for her having that vision other than to come here and possibly save people?

"It's safer if you just scram, Hufflepuff," that was said by the shortest, stoutest of the bunch. It was her turn to roll her eyes.

She seriously would have, but she was too curious to see what would happen to leave now, even though she'd just been on her way out. So she dug her heels in and crouched down with them.

"Is he a friend of yours?" she asked, and when the boys made no indication, she pressed on. "Your roommate?"

Remes Lupis. Lupin Remus. What had her name been in that vision? Remus Lupin. That felt more precise, but it also sounded like a joke. Really? Lupin, as in lupine? Wolf? And Remus and Romulus was said to have been raised by a she-wolf. So, he was either a born werewolf—she didn't even know if that was possible—or fate had it out for him.

"It's none of your business, firstie."

She scoffed, feeling indignant. "I probably know more about werewolves than you three do in your left pinkies."

"Yeah, right." Glasses made a movement with his face that looked a lot like sneering, but it could have been constipation.

"You're just saying that so we let you stay," the tall one stepped towards her, and raised his hand to her shoulder to push her away from the forest.

She glared. She hated being called a liar.

"My name is Nifry Scamander. My dad is Newt Scamander. So, no, I'm not kidding."

The boys silenced at that, but they seemed more confused than anything. Like why was she mentioning her dad? Her face flushed. She hadn't know if her father was very well known with students so she wasn't certain if they'd get that this was kind of her specialty in life. She knew her father's book was, but wasn't sure if students noted who the author was. It wasn't like _she_ took the time to memorize all the writers for her school books.

But now she sounded like an entitled brat, like, _'do you know who my father is?'_ Ugh.

"Isn't that the guy who wrote _Fantastic Beasts_ or whatever?" Glasses pushed the tall one away to give her another once over.

"Or whatever, yeah," she frowned, mostly at herself. She really should just go back to the school and sleep whatever weirdness had captured her, but instead she stayed there. Against better judgement.

The tall one started, "James, maybe she can hel—"

A loud, deafening howl sprang overhead, and the chill of the night was replaced with a different sort of buzz. Then after that call came another, and then another, until the whole night was coiling with the eerie song of the wolves. Something about it painted a pattern in her head that called to hunt, which made her think that leaving was a great idea!

"You know, we really shouldn't be here, like I said," she mumbled to them, her voice lower than a squeak.

"But we need to be there for him." James, glasses, brought his hand to her shoulder and pulled her backwards.

"Yeah, he might be a werewolf, but he's still our friend." Tall said, facing the forest. She was surprised by the lack of care for their safety there was. She didn't know if they were brave or stupid, but that's Gryffindor for you.

The short one was already backing away to the school until he heard his friend, and then even he mumbled an affirmative. A part of her respected that kind of loyalty.

"He'll be out here all night, so let's head back, and then in the morning you can do your bromance thing because I'm telling you, if he catches us he'll rip us apart." And just in case they weren't aware, "While they're werewolves they have a preference for humans, so it won't matter if you're friends. He'd eat you sooner than he'd hug you, and then he'd remember it all when he's himself again. You don't want that on your friend."

She knew that personally because she'd been in his head, but really anybody wouldn't want that.

When neither of them moved, she huffed on a surprisingly angry breath, "Don't romanticize this, I know how these things play out. You'll die once he catches your scent."

That caused James to sigh, "We'll just have to wait 'til morning then."

"Good, let's go on then." She grabbed the sleeve of James and pulled him back towards the school, but he wasn't pliable like she'd thought he'd be. Instead, he stayed rooted to the spot, overlooking the forest with a sort of steely determination.

"You go on, Hufflepuff," Tall sent her a look over his shoulder, "but we're staying _here_ until morning."

They weren't budging.

She released a tiny, human growl, "Fine, see where—"

She didn't have time to finish her sentence before, " _Aroooooooooooooo!_ "

The call was closer this time, much, much closer. Her shivering worsened, but for some reason she couldn't find it in her to leave the boys and head off to safety alone. Maybe she really was a Gryffinpuff, but more Gryffin than puff. And maybe the Hat had been wrong to place her with the badgers. She was beginning to think she'd only been in Hufflepuff because she'd _asked_ , although not outright.

Because would _anybody_ but a Gryffindor stay for certain doom? She'd say yes, but her father would surely prove that wrong. He'd gone on countless adventures, even as he was now at seventy years old. He was a Hufflepuff, but that didn't mean he wasn't brave, perhaps it was just a different kind of bravery. He did things because they were right, he protected creatures from other wizards because to him it wasn't even a choice. And really, what did Houses having to do with anything? Perhaps she'd been more affected by being a hatstall than she'd thought, thinking them the decider of innate traits.

"Ugh," she pressed in closer to the boys and chewed on her lip.

She had to think of what they could do to make it at least an unlikely probability that they'd be caught. They could rub dirt all over themselves? No. Werewolves had very good noses, and they'd not miss out on the chance for some two legged noms. There scent would be all over this area, and she'd been close enough to hear Lupin change, but not so close that he'd caught her scent if he still hadn't come after her.

She brought her hand to empty air. Ah, that's why. Their scents were being pushed away from him by the wind. But how to make sure that they couldn't be caught even if the currents changes direction?

Her answer came to her the longer she thought, and when it did she could smack herself in the face.

There _was_ the charm that made your scent go away. It wasn't very often used by other witches and wizards but for someone like her, she'd had it memorized by the time she was six as a precaution. You didn't work with fantastical creatures and not know how to hide yourselves from the worst of them. She could even do it without a wand, but it'd been a while, and really she hadn't needed it in a _while_.

Pulling out Frankie, she felt her magic coil at the murmured incantation, and then suddenly she couldn't smell the fruity scent of her shampoo, or the citrus scented detergent the school provided peppering her clothes. It had worked. She breathed a sigh of relief. Then she did the same for the other three boys, and smiled in satisfaction when she couldn't smell the slight odor from the short boy, or whatever the other two had smelled of before. She hadn't paid much attention to that.

The trio of boys had gotten low to the ground in the time she'd taken to hide them, and had been silently stewing in their decision. They hadn't even been paying attention to her small act of magic. It didn't matter to her now.

"As long as you don't make large amounts of noise and hide yourself visually, you should be fine. I just placed a charm to cover your scents." They looked at her in surprise. She couldn't help the note of annoyance that slipped by. "It'll last for a few hours, so go ahead and stay out 'til morning, I think my work here is done."

Satisfied, she stood up and turned on her foot to head towards the school.

"Uh, thanks!" The tall one whisper yelled, and she looked back to wave them goodbye as polite as she could muster.

Perhaps she'd been shown the future to save those three idiots from certain death. It comforted the uneasy feeling she'd had since she'd came to, not knowing what had happened. She took in a heavy breath. She just hoped she didn't have to get used to it.


	4. The Rush of the World

**The Rush of the World**

* * *

Nifry didn't like reading the Daily Prophet, and she didn't like the fact that some of the faces she saw on the list of the departed were some that she'd seen years in advance when her gift had been at its most horrendous. When all she'd seen were battles and death, and when she'd cry every night sobbing for those she couldn't help—couldn't save. When she'd had daily night terrors and nothing but the soothing hand of her mother and father could comfort her. When she felt safer with the creatures in the suitcase than she did outside with others amongst her own kind.

She'd learned from a very young age that humans were not the pinnacle of good, some were grey and untrustworthy. Others committed acts of pure violence that breeded no rhyme or reason, they just were. Maybe that was just the natural order of things.

"It's really such a sad thing, you know?" Mariah Clearwater murmured at the breakfast table where their friend group sat, paging her thumb through the papers. Nifry's gut clenched. It was worse than sad, it was terrible.

"I feel worse for the muggleborns, they must be so scared right now," Paige Vance sighed, her dark eyebrows cinching together. Paige was a second year who'd recently taken to hanging out with their group of friends. She was very sweet, and Nifry was honored to be her friend.

"Well I think they should fear us," came an intruding voice.

The girls looked up to see a group of Slytherin boys, and the one at the center was one she'd recognized. Regulus Black. She clenched her hands; from the weeks of being in Hogwarts and just being in his year alone she knew the sort of things he preached and paraded and she felt sick at the thought. How anyone could want to subjugate and rule over anyone was a mystery to her, to someone who wouldn't even wish to do that with her _wand_.

Maybe it was their desire for power that festered and diseased the minds of people that otherwise could—or would—have been good.

"No one here wants to hear your ill-conceived notions of blood purity, Black," Paige narrowed her eyes at the boy, and the dining hall in their vicinity tensed.

"Of course _you_ wouldn't, your mum's a mudblood, isn't she?" snarked one of the boys at Black's back.

"You leave my mum out of this." Nifry blinked at the ferocity Paige had said that. She didn't know the girl very well, but she'd always seemed like the quiet, soft sort. Although she supposed anyone would react to their family member being called such a word.

Nifry had never had to deal with such bigotry herself. She was generally considered to be pureblood from her European peers since most others didn't know of her mother's mixed blood status, her father being a pureblood himself. Her mother just wasn't well known enough for others to take note of her or the fact she's a Goldstein—which had mixed with No-Majs and muggleborns somewhere around her mother's generation in the late 1800s to early 1900s.

That didn't, however, water down the vitriol the word 'mudblood' sparked inside her.

Nifry glared at Black and his posse, her hand pawed at her wand holster, ready to do whatever to defend her fellow housemate. She wasn't very adept at duals, could produce an okay shield charm for defense, but she'd do her absolute best despite that.

A sweeping feeling overtook her, and a single breath left her before—

 _She was choking on something, her body wracked with aches and bruising from her thrashing about on the cold, hard floor beneath her. She was choking down a potion, one that showed her things of such horror she almost couldn't bear it, but she_ had _to, she absolutely had to_ —

She came back with a start, and then she flushed when she realized she was holding onto someone's arm, and that that limb belonged to none other than Black himself. Her fingers were latched into the flesh of his arm like hooks. Her fingers felt like stone when she tried to drop his arm, but couldn't. Horror shot through her like a crucio. In that moment she was stiff and disbelieving.

Her world was disoriented, and the whole feeling was like rushing from one reality into the next bizarre one. It gave her a sense of being out control and made her feel very unnerved by it all, if not scared out right.

Her increasing mortification was made worse by the look he was giving her, like she was absolutely crazy. Nifry certainly felt like one when he scoffed and harshly shrugged out of her hold, nearly knocking her much smaller form over.

Nifry wanted to cry then, wanted to take back whatever had happened but she couldn't do that without knowing what even had occurred!

"I-I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me," her voice warbled out in a thin whisper, and the boys that belonged to Black's crew were all shooting disgusted looks her way. Like she was a freak. Her hand went to her chest, hoping to soothe at the new pain that had appeared there.

"Let's get out of here," one of them said. Evan Rosier, she thought, and watched as he pulled at Black's shoulder who went pliable. They shuffled off to their own table, and sat as far away as they could, plating their breakfast with odd expressions. It was a quiet wish she had that they enjoy what they could of the morning, after she'd sufficiently ruined it.

Numb, she turned back to her table, a dreaded feeling pooling through her bones as she looked at her friends with a hope that they wouldn't be wearing those same faces. She hoped they didn't think of her as strange or weird. That they'd remember she was still Nifry, their friend.

"Nifry, are you alright?" Mariah asked, and stood up to join her while she shook where she stood. The others came too, Paige, Leslie, and Jenny. They each wore looks of concern, and that gladdend her, softening the blow of having done something so _embarrassing_ _ **!**_

"What exactly happened?" Leslie questioned with a frown. The other girls all shrugged, a bit wide eyed and confused.

But Nifry had no clue, and shook her head in answer. She huffed and swallowed the sob in her throat, and refused to talk after that, instead forcing down whatever food she'd had leftover on her plate.

* * *

"Did she say something to you?"

"It sounded like a threat from what I heard."

"That girl is insane, did you see her eyes? Crazy eyes." Their group burst into light chuckles, and a few people nodded in agreement. From their perspective she'd shot from her seat to grab onto his arm and had leaned in to whisper something to him. Which _was_ crazy. No one in their right mind would do that to someone of such high standing, and certainly not a nobody like that girl.

Regulus ignored his friends as he ate his fill, unsettled and mildly perturbed. He'd never known a Hufflepuff to be one for jokes, especially when they involved scaring others, but he wasn't certain that that's what it was. Maybe his friends were right, and she was insane. They'd agree if they knew what she'd told him too.

It certainly had sounded like a threat, but who would threaten someone in such a roundabout manner?

 _Choke, choke it down, your own branded nightmare, and that glimmering emerald potion of despair._ He could still imagine his ear tickling under the sensation of her almost desperate plea. It hadn't sounded like a threat to him because it wasn't said with anger or hate. It sounded like fear.

What potion? Choke down what? It hadn't made any sense.

So she had to be crazy. Which made everything she said nothing but a sick show of mental breakage.

Therefore, it was most likely nothing; that the girl had a moment of lunacy before realizing she was acting strange. Surely it was something like that. Yet, he recalled her face when she'd pulled away, and how vacant her expression had been. He'd watched the light return to her eyes and then the sudden clarity hit her in an instance.

He couldn't deny the oddity of the situation. Maybe that's why he felt uneasy.

Did he even know the girl? He might have her in a few of his classes, but he'd never know. Hufflepuff's all looked the same to him, none of them ever stood out. That girl specifically would most likely blend in with the woodwork easier than most, being that she looked about three years younger than all of them and had the stature of a house-elf. Nobody could probably see her with how short she was.

So no, he didn't know her and it could definitely be in the realm of possibilities she'd been joking. Was probably upset with her delicate senses from his views on mudbloods—the thieves—and had decided to play at something unconventional. To unnerve him. That's what it was. She was simply a strange, strange girl. Maybe she was even one of those aforementioned mudbloods.

It gave him a sort of vindictive pleasure to think that, so he'd commented on it idly not expecting much from his careless words. The rest of his day went certainly better than his morning, so there was that.

* * *

Later that day, Nifry thought it couldn't get worse when a sand brown haired boy walked up to her with three accompanying others—the three from yesterday. Ah. They were probably there for something stupid.

She tried side-stepping them while they walked down the hallway, clutching at her books and such, but they boxed her in before she realized what was happening.

"Hello," she said with a squeak, betraying her sudden fear. She wasn't afraid of much besides other people, and that was because she wasn't very used to them quite yet. She thought she'd gotten better at it since the day before she'd had a conversation with this group in particular in the dark. Yet she felt a sudden spike of fear in her heart and as a result, her shoulders hunched and she went stiff with the books in her hands.

She blamed her lack of a back bone on it being a bad day in general, and left it at that.

"Hello, Scamander was it?" James, the only one she knew the name to for sure, asked, heading the group. She released another pitiful sound when they came closer, and her eyes darted for exits, but there were none that she could see.

"Uh, y-yes." Merlin she hated that stutter. How could she stare down some of the scariest creatures on earth and _stutter_ when another human being cornered her? Well, she supposed she'd seen some of those creatures cower like her, but she understood that. She understood that because in fact humans _are_ scary.

And they were all at least a foot taller than her.

James frowned. "Relax, kid, we're not here to hurt you."

She blinked. "Then what do you want?"

"Did you tell anyone?" The one tallest one asked, and she immediately shook her head.

"About the _aroo_ thing? No." For some reason, this made her relax. They could talk werewolves, and then she could be on her way.

"Can you keep it secret?" The fourth person asked, the newer one, the one she had no doubts wasn't entirely human. She felt a weird sort of whammy hit her when their eyes met, and a part of her felt like she remembered being him. Remembered their shared pain the night before, but it was something more like an echo than something she felt physically.

Magic was strange. Being a Seer was possibly stranger.

"Are you not registered, is that it?" She had to ask, because well, her father had established the whole registry to begin with, and it hadn't been with ill intents. Despite that, somehow some people always manage to take a good system and use it for their own gains. Like refusing jobs and other rights to those known werewolves that can't help being what they became. 'Cause of that cursed Fenrir Greyback.

"No!" he said quickly. "I'm registered . . . it's just I don't want others to know." He winced, cringing a bit at the idea. That she couldn't fault him for.

"That's fine, I wasn't going to say anything anyways." She waited for them to part for her, but instead they stood there a while longer, causing her to grow anxious again. "Anything else?'

"That spell you used, to cover our scents? What was it?" James asked after a bit of further deliberation, and she wanted to groan.

"If you're planning on going out there every full moon, don't. I don't want to hear about dead students one morning and have that on my conscious." They eyed each other, and she wanted to kick them. "Don't do that yourselves, or to him."

"I tried telling them," Remus? (How was she even certain that's what his name is?) Remus said, then sighed. "They won't listen to me."

"See, even your friend doesn't want you along because it's _dangerous_. Just let it be, he'll be safe like he always has been throughout the rest of your school days." She took a moment to consider who she was talking to. A bunch of Gryffindor boys who probably thought it was cool being friends with a werewolf, probably wanted to show how brave they were.

What did one say to people like that to discourage the sort of stupidity they could get up to? Nifry had no answers. She shifted on her toes and eyed a slight opening between the tall ones robes and James. She could make it if she sprinted fast enough.

"So you're not going to teach us?" The short one asked, and she shook her head, a bit exasperated, but no longer feeling that previous sense of fear. She realized they were just idiots, and idiots tended to just be that and not super cruel.

"Do something more productive than this, okay? I'm not assisting in suicide." After the last word left her mouth she proceeded to duck into the opening between the two boys and pumped her small legs down the hallway and towards freedom.

She was glad she couldn't hear any sort of pursuit, still, she booked it up until she reached her original destination of her dorm room, and went on to fall into bed with a crumpled groan. She didn't even want to get up to write home, nobody deserved to be the recipient of the sad letter it'd no doubt end up being.

Nifry just hoped the rest of the year wouldn't be as bad as that day had been.


	5. A Hanging House Elf

**A Hanging House Elf**

* * *

If she had a certain sign on her back that said, "Please bully me, I'm weak," she hadn't been aware of it until the following days after the small incident with Black.

That's when things at school started to change for the worse.

Nifry hadn't realized how good school was until the bullying had started, but when it did, she simply longed for the days of normalcy that seemed to grow farther and farther the longer it went on.

Most of the pranks were easy to rectify, and sometimes she didn't even cry about it.

The first day was okay enough, aside from the fact someone turned her ink and quills to worms in her bag. That wasn't so bad, she liked worms, even if they were nonmagical. (Nifry didn't discriminate; she loved all animals, even the ones which didn't seem as cool to the wizarding community.) The second day was a bit worse, someone poured water all over her, getting all of her things and herself wet in the process. That was okay, too, she supposed, she'd just needed to change her clothes and air everything out. But the absolute worst were the hexes that came the subsequent days later!

She knew one thing for certain as time went on—she hated Slytherin. Hated the house with the passion of a thousand suns! And she'd never hated anything before in her life! But she knew without a doubt, that that's what she was feeling. Or maybe it wasn't hate and she did have doubts, since she could still see that not every one of the Slytherins were complete ignoramuses and dolts, but she wasn't feeling super positive about them either.

It was a struggle to remain as positive and carefree as she'd been before, and the only things that were helpful during this time were her friends.

She didn't know what she'd done to deserve them . . .

Leslie and Jenny were helping her with her school work _and_ they were always teaming up to protect her. Leslie in particular could be surprisingly vicious, and reminded Nifry of a mother dragon when angered enough. Jenny was more passive out of their trio, but perhaps that was more passive aggressive, seeing as somehow the nicest person she knew was managing to make subtle digs at the Slytherins in the most creative of ways.

And although that was all well and good, Nifry felt a bit . . . hm, well she felt a bit useless at times. Like a damsel in distress while her friends defended her against her own issues. She did _not_ appreciate that, not one bit. What would her mother think? Ugh, and her parents, they didn't even _know_!

She'd purposely kept her letters vague, and although their return correspondences were always searching, she couldn't bring herself to tell her family, that A) she was still failing about two classes, three if you counted her broom flying exercises (those were not going well, they were not going well at all), and B) that she was a coward!

She didn't know _how_ the Hat could even fathom her being in Gryffindor at this point, seeing as how she kept running from confrontation, and it was at this point she realized that if she were to face a boggart it wouldn't compare to the real deal of having to fend off the attacks of groups of people who had never even shared a word with her even once! Let alone enough to know to dislike her!

Nifry was still sore in the arm from the recent tirade of hexes that had been thrown at her during their broom exercises, (the reason _why_ she was doing so poorly) that she was struggling to lift it while she sat in Madam Pomfrey's office, tears streaming down her face.

She was so _irritated_ with herself, felt weak and alone despite knowing how much her friends cared for her. But her ego was shattered and, like a flower cut days ago and uncared for, she was wilting. And she was getting _poetic._ Ugh.

"Now, now," Madam Pomfrey said, adopting a higher pitch than she'd talked to the student who'd brought her there, another Hufflepuff she was struggling to place the name of. Her friends didn't share that particular class with her, being in different timestamps, which always made it the worst part of her day. Nifry recognized the higher pitch as something adults used with _children_ , and although she _knew_ she looked a lot younger than she was, (and probably acted like it), she didn't like to be _reminded_.

So she was also irritated with the nurse.

"It _hurts_ ," Nifry whined, hating how the it sounded even to her own ears. She'd just been mentally getting on the woman's case, and here she was, letting out the sharpest sounds with her childish warble. Madam Pomfrey winced a bit, but gently coaxed the girl to drink a calming draught. She had certainly needed it, and once it went down her throat, she immediately felt the magic take effect.

"Would you mind telling me a bit how this happened, Niffella?" Nifry jolted a bit at hearing her full name, and cringed hearing a different echo. The echo of what her bullies called her. Ugh.

She bit her lip, even she didn't really remember the events. All she knew was she'd been in the air one moment, and then she'd been on the ground, having landed on her arm wrong with her head spinning the world around her until she'd puked.

Usually she could brush it off and blame it on one of her classmates, who'd tried several times to hinder her before, but this time? It had been different. She'd felt the flow of precognition take hold of her as it was now becoming increasingly familiar, and then she'd just been . . . gone for a moment. What was the strange part was she didn't even remember what she'd envisioned. Everything had simply gone black, and then bam, on the floor.

It worried her. Here she was, a Seer with no real training, who had no control over herself and she could have _died_. With the calming draught in her, she could think of it more critically and not hysterically, so she nodded to herself. Yes, she could have.

She'd done some reading (shocking, yes, but necessary), and she knew for a fact that true Seers, the ones like her she supposed, were rare. _Very, very_ rare. She'd tried searching for more like her in books, but the only one who came close was Cassandra Trelawney, but she was from _centuries_ (or what felt like centuries to her) ago and the way her visions worked seemed a tad different.

She'd read that while under prophecy Cassandra would often have no idea of her surroundings, and that while some visions she could see clearer than others, she was always a passive person while it played on. Like a specter watching a play go on. It wasn't like Nifry's where she would often become someone entirely different inside the vision. Feel the person thoughts and emotions while there, like with Lupin, and _live_ through it.

But maybe it was something Cassandra had kept hidden, because who really knew right? The woman was long gone, and most of the evidence the books sited were either anecdotal from those who had known her, or from her diaries she'd kept her whole life. And those diaries were off limits to most, with only a few passages having ever been released.

The chilling thing to Nifry though was knowing that Cassandra Trelawney had died, allegedly, during a vision. The same vision she was now famous for, when she'd prophesied the events of what they now knew to be Grindelwald's uprising. Cassandra had gone on and on about the darkness of what was to come, and described unlikely heroes. _Hidden_ heroes, that she recognized as her family members, who'd all been involved with that whole debacle.

Aunt Queenie used to tell her all about it, knowing how curious Nifry had been, though her parents hadn't appreciated it. They'd wanted to shelter her from the bad as much as they could, but Queenie, as soft as a woman she was, talked about the bravery of Newt and Tina, and even her dear husband, and Nifry's uncle, Jacob's own courage. She described the peril of their adventures, and maybe some of it was hyperbolized or dumbed down for a child, but Nifry had been enraptured. But that was besides the point.

In a way, Nifry felt connected to the woman, as long gone as she was, and though the only thing they really shared were similar abilities, she was the only real figure Nifry could look up to and see herself there. She just didn't want to die while under a vision, and if that could happen to Cassandra, that could happen to her.

She shivered.

It was definitely the time to _tell_ someone.

She looked at Madam Pomfrey, who seemed like a sweet woman, despite having unknowingly irritated her wounded pride just moments ago, and opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

She snapped her jaw shut and warbled an indistinct sound, and cringed at it. She should just say it and get it over with, but the fear of her not being believed was getting in the way.

She was remembering all at once the times her parents had shied away from her "overactive imagination" when she'd told them of all the sorts of things she'd seen in her "dreams", and she'd seen _a lot_.

Nifry knew they thought with her being so sheltered, that it was her just making up stories to entertain herself. But the things she'd been forced to witness? The confusing acts of the true world she'd never had the opportunity to be unaware of? Murder? Genocide? The tears of someone she didn't even know consuming her after them having witnessed the death of their brother or mother? Those _feelings_ , they'd had, and the jarring way her reality constantly switched was enough to traumatize her for life.

Had Cassandra had to deal with such things? Had her accidental magic shown up like hers? She didn't know. Couldn't.

So it had been easier to pretend it wasn't real. That it was imaginary, and so even she had been convinced that maybe the things she saw were things she'd made up after all.

But it had been hell.

Nifry had to clench her fists and suck in a deep breath. The calming draught was quickly dispersing, and she wondered if it was because her feelings were just that strong. She _was_ under a lot of stress. Nifry was going to combust, but she just couldn't bring herself to face the disbelief in someones eyes. Especially in the eyes of someone with such a sweet disposition.

She opened her mouth again, and lied through her teeth.

* * *

The guilt of having lied ate at her throughout the day, add on top of the other smucky things the Slytherins had decided to hit her with.

Nifry was supposed to be a Hufflepuff, but what had she done? She'd betrayed one of the most prized principles her House had! If anyone knew, surely they'd be deducted points for her fib.

Groaning, she was starting to realize a few things. She wasn't a Gryffindor because she wasn't brave, and now she didn't know if she was even a Hufflepuff, seeing as how she'd just lied. She couldn't be a Ravenclaw because she wasn't very smart or book savvy when it came to most things, and _her_ being a _Slytherin_? Yeah, fat chance that was!

Nifry had to face it.

She didn't belong here.

 _If I had the chance for a do-over I'd pick Ilvermorny!_ At least there they didn't base your House on characteristics you may or may not possess. She rubbed at her misty eyes, doopy and depressed.

She was grumbling to herself, walking towards the dining hall for dinner when suddenly, she saw shadows moving along the walls through the candlelight. She froze, and realizing she shouldn't just doe up, forced her legs to keep moving down the stairs. In her head she was barratting herself.

 _It could be_ anyone _, really. I shouldn't just assume everyone is out to get me._

Nifry let out a deafening squeak when she felt a weight press against her shoulder.

 _I_ should _assume everyone is out the get me!_

* * *

Severus wasn't in the best of moods. Lily was being confusing, more so than usual, and he was struggling to keep their relationship they way it had once been. That was getting more difficult with the less and less time they spent together, and the polarizing places they were in the school itself. Add on top of that, and his most recent fight with that _dunderhead, Potter_ , and he was ready to spew lava.

The only bright side to things was noting on his way to the dining hall that someone was having an even worse time than him when he looked up at the sound of some mouse like sounds squeaking in quite the pitiful way. At first he didn't know where it was coming from, but a group of Gryffindors who'd been a few meters ahead of him were laughing about something on a spire hanging on the wall.

He'd heard the sounds and thought, _perhaps it's a house elf someone is punishing_ , and continued to think that when he saw the form from far away. The closer he got though he could see the figure was actually that of a familiar face.

It was the girl from the train at the beginning of the year, and also the very one his fellow Slytherins had started to target. Mostly it was the first years, following after the example the younger Black's posse had set, but he knew in recent times that those from his year and from the third had started joining in.

She hung there from her robes, blobby and red faced with tears and snot dripping from her nose with one of her arms stuck in a sling, probably from some other accident induced from his House. He wasn't surprised. They were all quite vicious.

Once the Gryffindors had had their laugh they walked on their way and Severus was about to follow suit, having also taken his fill of humor from the debacle, but for some reason he couldn't elaborate on, their eyes caught. He wished they hadn't.

Her sobbing grew louder, and . . . well, a part of him felt a tad bit of pity. He knew what it was like to be bullied, but so did everyone. But something about this scene in particular . . . maybe it was the fact it was a small, delicate girl hanging there that made him think of a bunny. There was something entrapping in the way their eyes met, however, and the seconds hung there for about a full minute. A minute in which she'd actually grown calm.

Internally, he groaned and ripped their gazes from each other. Determined, he forced his feet to move forward, ready to just walk away, after noting the slight commiseration he felt. He shouldn't have assumed it would be that simple.

"Oh come on!" she cried after him, "You're gonna just keep walking? We shared a train ride for Merlin's sake! A staring contest!"

His groaning became a very audible thing once her cries grew _even_ louder, and this time the twinge in his chest was making it bit more difficult to continue forward.

He looked back and glared in her direction. He didn't know her actual name, but people around him had taken to calling her Elfella, not the most creative, or nicest of names, but he supposed it was accurate seeing as how he'd first assumed that was just what she was. A house elf. Maybe her name was Ella, and they'd just tacked on the elf part. How . . . obvious. Or maybe it _was_ her name. He smirked. It would be fitting.

It was then their eyes caught again, and something about the way her blue green eyes twinkled, and the round doll shape to them made him think of Lily, even though the two looked nothing alike. Lily being as beautiful as the flower she was named after, and Elfella being a half-pint with the worst posture he'd seen.

"You know they target you because you give them a nice reaction. That and somehow you managed to make enemies in Slytherin, despite you being a doormat." Severus frowned. He hadn't meant to acknowledge her so clearly and without exit.

"D-doormat?" Elfella squawked with a surprising amount of outrage, and for a moment she swayed in the air from the tips of her robes, and soon the cries of anger turned into those of fright. She went stiff, and her eyes grew larger, despite them already taking up a large portion of her face.

He sighed, and his stomach twinged with hunger. He should just walk away, that would be easier, but having seen a bit of Lily in her, despite how _weird_ that was, he couldn't consciously leave Elfella there to wallow.

Severus strutted back towards her and pulled out his wand, and muttered a levitation charm, that surprised her, causing more mouse like squeaking until she landed safely on the floor with her feet. When he let her go she swayed, her legs tripping over themselves until she was sprawled on the floor and laughter bumbled out from him almost unconsciously. It was like seeing the same thing that would have happened anyways had she just let herself drop.

Elfella sniffled and thanked him through some immediate sobbing, which was getting pretty annoying the longer he stood there. He turned on his feet. "Don't mention this to anyo—" Severus nearly tripped over something but caught himself just in time.

The sound of a tinkling bell followed after, and he noted it was like a windchime, the way Elfella laughed. Once he realized that's what it was. He turned his head to glare at her and to punctuate his threat of her not ruining his already slightly shoddy reputation with his House for being _nice_ to her. But then his eyes caught what he'd nearly tripped on and he crouched to pick it up.

His fingers felt the sting of a quick zap the moment it touched wood, and he jumped a bit from the force.

"Oh! Frankie!" Elfella was on her feet and came forward, snatching the wand from the floor. "I thought they took you!" She pressed her face against the wood, mourning sounds spewing moments later.

"It might have given them a zap," Severus noted dryly, rubbing his tender fingers.

She looked up. "What?" her question followed.

"Nothing." He grew serious then, and cloistered her against the wall, the darkest expression he could muster on his face. "Seriously, _don't tell anyone I helped you._ "

Severus was pleased with the sound of her gulping, and the sweat that formed on her brow.

If anyone asked, he'd say she was delusional.

* * *

Nifry had a headache that refused to go away, dinner didn't help, nothing helped and she was prepared to find where the Gameskeeper kept the hippogriffs so she could hop on one and catch a flight _home_.

Actually the more she thought of it, the longer that sounded like the best, most splendid of ideas! Except for the fact she'd have to face the wrath of her mother for skipping out on school, and the quiet disappointment on her father's face when he realized how much she hated this place. A school he _loved_.

At the very least, she couldn't wait for winter break.

She wanted to scream.

* * *

 **A/N:** For those in the future possibly perusing this story, I thought I should probably mention (because I keep forgetting to), but this was written before any of the other movies for Fantastic Beasts came out, so far it's just the first so therefore anything from the Grindelwald period comes from what we know _currently_ , same for anything on the Scamander and Goldstein families and as such is mostly kept vague for that reason.

The stuff with Cassandra is also non canon, seeing as there isn't really much on divination or on the woman herself, so most of the Seer stuff in this story is made up from my own head. Also the reason for why Nifry's strange types of visions will come in the future! c: (Get it?)

Thank you so much for reading, and the reviews I've received, and all of the follows and favorites! They mean so much to me, seeing as this project is very special and dear to me.

So here's a question, how much are you enjoying this story?

Is there anything that I'm doing you may not necessarily like?Things concerning Nifry's Seer abilities, plot points and the like.I'd love to hear and maybe improve the story! I'd also like to know your guys' thoughts on the shipping. I do have a romance planned for Snape that doesn't involve Lily (it's an OC x Snape), but anyone else is fair game aside from Nifry and Regulus (and aforementioned Snape x OC). By the way concerning the shipping, it will happen _way_ in the future, just FYI.


	6. Honey Badgers Strike Back

**Honey Badgers Strike Back**

* * *

Leslie had a secret, and because of that, she knew Nifry had one, too.

It hadn't been obvious at first. It seemed to her that naturally Nifry was a bit of a space cadet. She had problems focusing and would often get this doopy look on her face while she gazed at empty air. Leslie looked at this trait fondly. The girl was a bit of an idiot, but she was also pretty sweet, if a tad ignorant to the ways of the world. She had problems talking to people, and struggled in classes and with the general school populace because of it.

That was alright, Leslie was the sort that enjoyed taking care of others. She did so with her siblings at home, and it felt natural to do so as well in school. And Nifry really was like having to take care of a younger sibling. Sometimes she was annoyed and sometimes she was crooning over how adorable she could be. Knowing her a bit better now, she doubted Nifry would much appreciate that thought.

Leslie liked her though, truly liked her. At first it was because the girl also brought a bit of an otherworldly vibe to her that others sorely lacked. It reminded her of home.

She thought that might be all there was to the girl. That she enjoyed her company for that sole reason. As the months passed, it became much more, as friendships did. Yet, Leslie had a secret she wasn't sure she wanted to share, and so did Nifry, and she was still curious, but mostly worried.

It was a bit obvious why she was worried.

Nifry was accident prone and small. Even though everyone (meaning those insufferable blokes in Slytherin) made her out to be this ugly house elf look-a-like, she thought it more apt to say she resembled an adorable fairy that flit to and fro with a laughter that made anyone with a heart smile—then again, she was biased. Although Nifry wasn't as vain as those creatures, and wasn't an obvious beauty like herself she was still cute! She had large green blue eyes that Leslie knew just hadn't grown into her head quite right yet, but sparkled and lit up when she was happy. Nifry's hair was also long and lovely when she didn't have it pinned against her head the way she tended to. The shade was a blonde copper and it really was quite nice.

Leslie wished others could see it, too.

On queue she fingered the ends of her own locks while she pretended to sleep, waiting for the tell tale signs she should act.

Being roommates, Leslie was aware of Nifry sleepwalking at night, where she would be mumbling incoherent words and knocking things over and such. Jenny being the heaviest sleeper she knew didn't even stir at the sounds, but Leslie had always been easy to wake. So she'd been keeping track.

So far it had only been once the first month at school, about three times in the second, and if this night wasn't any different than the last few days, then it'd be the sixth time for all of November, as it would be the beginning of December tomorrow.

Leslie didn't know if this was normal for Nifry, and she didn't think it odd the first few times it happened. Now that she'd been paying more attention, however, mainly for the sake of protecting her friend from unanticipated attacks from those gits from Slytherin, she'd noted a few things in recent times.

The way her friend carried herself was very suspect. She thought back to the time she'd watched Nifry stand up during the breakfast table that day the Slytherins came to harass them. It'd been the same look she wore at night while she was up roaming the school. It was something equally blank and intense, and strange. She'd walked up to Black that day and had leaned into his ear and gripped him as hard as she could, but . . . well, she didn't seem to realize she'd done it at all. She had her suspicious of what it could be, but wasn't entirely sure if she were honest.

It could be a spirit possessing her, but that seemed a bit outlandish and she didn't know if that was even possible. It could be that her friend had some sort of condition, or what if she had some sort of strange curse? The kind that wasn't obvious.

Leslie heard the soft squeak of a mattress from next to her in Nifry's direction of the room. Then she heard the patter of bare footsteps against the floor. Leslie opened her eyes and waited for Nifry to walk out the door of their dorm room. After that there was a slight click and then the shutting of it, Leslie slid from her bed and trailed after.

She could never be sure if Nifry was actually sleeping when she did this, or if she was awake, but each time she'd followed her she'd always either had her eyes closed or that look on her face like with Black. It was honestly quite disturbing, and there'd been one time she'd thought Nifry had seen her when their eyes met for a moment, but it was like nothing was there. She'd just slid past her, rambling nonsense.

As it was Leslie had started following the girl around the school, somehow deftly hiding from the Prefects and teachers out searching for children up to just this exact stunt. Leslie didn't feel ashamed of not following the rules when it came to this, although she knew she should probably tell someone. For now she was looking out for her friend on these adventures.

Despite being the shortest in their class, and probably the whole school, Nifry was pretty quick on her feet so sometimes Leslie struggled to catch up and keep her in her sights—especially when the stair cases moved. This time though, luck was on her side and it was a very relaxed night, albeit slightly creepy one. Leslie didn't like the castle when it was so dark, it creeped her out.

They came to a familiar hallway, and it was usually there Nifry would stand there for a while, sleep talking and swaying like a breeze could tip her over. For some reason this time it was different. Nifry took to pacing along the walkway, and Leslie managed to catch what the girl was saying.

"I have to hide this, I have to hide this," Nifry murmured. Leslie barely noticed that her friend had carried with her something wrapped in a white cloth. The weirdness of it spooked and now it was starting to look a little nefarious what little Nifry was doing. She repeated her pacing three times and—Leslie blinked. The flat stone wall lit by a single candle was somehow no longer the same one she'd just been staring at. It became a large door instead.

Nifry headed towards the door that had appeared from nowhere and opened it without reservations, though Leslie could think of plenty. She stepped through and then shut it firmly behind her. The door disappeared and Leslie blinked again.

Worry exploded in her chest, and she breathed out in a panic. It didn't take her long to stifle it though, and she rushed to where the door just was, and began rubbing at the walls. Her eyebrows clenched and then she looked at the hallway in question. Maybe she had to do what Nifry did?

"And what are you doing out of bed, Miss Fischer?" Leslie blinked for the third time, and blanched when she saw Professor Dumbledore standing right behind her. If it had been anyone else, she'd have been able to do something other than simply stand there, but it wasn't, and now she felt bad.

She opened her mouth, looked at the wall, and then shut it tight. She was worried about Nifry, but she didn't feel too good about ratting on her friend. It was either a good thing or a bad thing, that she didn't have time to make nonsense excuses as Dumbledore herded her past the wall and away. She thought he'd look disappointed with her, but instead the kind old man she held in such high esteem smiled softly at her.

"Not to worry, my dear. Now, it's best to sleep well, don't you think?" She looked at him sheepishly, more than a bit of embarrassment and shame filling her cheeks with warmth. Maybe it was worse being treated well as a punishment than poorly, because rather than give her a stern talking to, he gave a flick of his hand and then there was a plate of cookies and a glass milk there waiting in the air. She eyed it, not sure what to hope for, thinking there might be a trick it. She had to trust him as he waved at them and she took the plate and cup in hand.

"Erm," she mumbled to fill the space in the air.

"I thought they may be in order," he said, and if possible, his wizened face became softer.

Leslie blushed, nodding, "Thank you, Professor." And her guilt with being out at night was now mounting. She didn't have time to look back at the door in concern for her friend as Professor Dumbledore headed her off.

She ate a cookie, and he had one as well before he broke the silence, "You're not having any issues are you? With your studies?"

With the change in subject, Leslie breathed a bit of a sigh of relief, and shook her head. "I'm doing well, the classes aren't too difficult, although I find some of the spells a bit hard to cast." Some people were of the opinion that all magic users were equal in power in some sense, although everyone truly knew that wasn't accurate.

Leslie was born from a squib father, and although that wasn't what she was, her aptitude for witchdom certainly was in a bit of a questionary period. But she supposed Professor Dumbledore already knew that, as he knew most things to deal with her family. He was after all, the one to recommend her to attend Hogwarts, and she was gladdened for it. If he hadn't, she'd be in Beauxbatons with her relatives, the ones who weren't exactly fond of her side of the tree. She was especially happy she was able to meet Nifry and Jenny, and at the mention of Nifry her heart sank again. She hoped she was alright.

"Uh, Professor . . ." she started and he looked down at her curiously. "Nifry went through a door that disappeared back there." Her cheeks heated again, but she was more concerned for her friends safety than any backlash that her friend in question might have that she gave her away.

Professor Dumbledore eyed her for a moment and tipped his head with a secret smile, "Then, Miss Fischer, let's hope she ended up where she wanted."

* * *

Nifry woke to her head pounding and her back aching. For some reason she was on something entirely too solid to be her bed, and that thought jolted her. She stood up in a groggy, and hurried manner that almost sent her tumbling down again and rubbed at her eyes a few times to be sure that what she was seeing was accurate.

"We're not in Kansas anymore," she mumbled and it spoke to her stupor that she was quoting a muggle movie her parents had shown her when she was real little. It also spoke to how much Britain was rubbing off on her if she was also calling the mundanes of the world the British word rather than the American no-maj. Aaandd she was going on a tangent that didn't really matter, because she didn't know where she was.

She just knew it wasn't her room.

Nifry eyed her surroundings and sighed. This whole waking up in random areas was getting to her, and all she could recall from what she'd been seeing before she "woke", was a tiara with glimmering, silver metalwork and a gemstone placed at the center and that's all she knew. She didn't know why she saw it, or why she was here.

Her fingers unlatched from a small weight and she looked down to find something wrapped in a cloth sitting at her feet. Curiously she picked it up again and unwrapped it. There were pumpkin pasties, three to be exact. They'd been in her hand and she hadn't even noticed.

She might have brought them there for a reason, but her stomach growled and she glanced around the room again. She couldn't help her hunger or her curiosity so she walked around while picking at the snacks.

It was only minutes in she realized that most of the items in the room, as miscellaneous as they were and as much as they patterned with no rhyme or reason, that these were antiques. There was an air of age to the objects that spoke of either decades or centuries of standing. The dust on some of them caused her to sniffle, which wasn't nearly as bad as when she got to the books. Oh yeah, and there were books. Lots and lots of books. If what she was seeing was accurate. Leaning towers of them that held almost no appeal to her so why was she here?

It was only when her eye caught upon the familiar piece, a tiara that looked nearly the same as it did when she'd seen it although it was far more discolored and aged than when she saw it in her vision. It'd sat here for years, she assumed.

For some reason she was hesitant to touch it, or anything in the room for that matter. She reasoned that it was dirty, that it might make her sick, so she ate the last of her food and searched for a door. She wasn't too keen on staying any longer after all.

* * *

It was as she was stepping in her dorm room, the sun not even having risen yet that she was greeted by her unsurly friend who was sitting up in bed with a book in her hand. As she headed to her bed, Leslie got off of hers and crossed her arms in a way that resembled her mother when she was upset.

"It's two in the morning, Nifry," Leslie hissed quietly, peeking at Jenny's side of the room. There was only soft snoring and the gentle rise and fall of her chest.

"I-I'm sorry," Nifry stumbled, and her friend caught her in time to drag her to the soft edge of her bed. She didn't know what to say, so she picked at her nails in anxiety. Leslie sighed, grabbed for her hands with one of hers and then used the other to tilt Nifry's face up to meet her eyes.

"Nif, we need to talk," she said and it sounded ominous enough to make Nifry nervous. Or well, in this case, more so. The other girl bit her lip and seemed almost hesitant before she added in a rush, "You have a secret you aren't telling me, and I know because I have one, too. So it's best if we can get this over with, wouldn't you agree?"

"Sure," and no sooner than she'd said that before something magical happened as Nifry was looking at her friend. The girls face morphed into something different and bizarre, and she was used to such things, though not on her friends face. Her features became more avian, and perhaps even feathers started to sprout from her hair. In fact she was sure of it when Leslie took one of them in her hands and seemed to fiddle nervously with it.

She had no words until she blinked a few more times.

"You're a _metamorphmagus!_?" Nifry whisper screamed, and Leslie clamped her hands down on Nifry's lips.

"No! I'm Half-Veela!"

Niffella blinked a few more times and then Leslie's face was back to normal again.

"Now, you." Leslie puffed out her lips in a pout, but her jaw locked and it was clear she would have to respond in kind.

"I'm a Seer," she whispered, and the words tumbling out felt like honey, slippery and sweet. She felt a weight lift from her shoulder and she slumped before eying her friends reaction.

The other girl was nodding and whispering more to herself than Nifry, "It makes complete sense. I can't believe I didn't guess it before, really."

"Same to you," Nifry giggled, and soaked in the vision of her friend once more. Leslie being the cutest girl in their year wasn't even a surprise anymore, and when they were older, there would be no competition to her being the number one either. This didn't cause Leslie to smile back, however. Instead she self-consciously pulled at her perfect, springy locks of blonde hair.

"You aren't going to tell anyone, right?"

Nifry couldn't help the indignant squawk that left her. "Of course not!" Leslie's eyes widened at her volume and once again squashed her hands against her face to silence her. The too looked to Jenny's side again, and when there was no obvious movement they slumped in relief.

"We should tell her," they said at the same time. Nifry smiled, and then Leslie joined her.

"You know, I didn't know Half-Veela's could do that with their faces." She hadn't even known they could access it without anger, but then again, wizards really were willfully ignorant on other races, especially those of the humanoid variety.

"Not all, some, but not all."

"Ah," she murmured. They were quiet again.

"What's it like?"

Nifry looked at her friend, and it was her turn to be self-conscious. Leslie didn't have to make it obvious what she was talking about. She knew.

Neither of them got any sleep that night, rather they found themselves swapping their experiences with each other and Nifry learned a valuable lesson that night, while at the same time learning more about her dearest friend. In fact it was that night that sealed their friendship, and there was a comfort now that she could take that didn't used to be there.

She learned that the Veela were more than just a race of beautiful creatures that bewitched people. They were solitary, and secretive beings, that could do more than shift their faces to a bird like horror and spout flames from their hands. There was even more to them that Leslie wasn't even willing to part with.

Nifry also heard her friends sadness, her anger in being treated like she was some sort of monster by her father's relatives who were of the Pureblood and close minded sort and didn't like half-breeds of any kind. She'd kept it hidden from the school for that express purpose, so she could hide the fact she wasn't entirely human.

In exchange to listening to her friend pour her heart out, Nifry was allowed to do the same. And that valuable lesson she learned? She learned to be forthright with her hardships with those who cared. Because if she hadn't, the two of them may have never known the sort of comfort they could take in each others simply _knowing._

She would eternally be grateful for Leslie's courage that night in confronting her, because it had sparked her own.

* * *

She heard Leslie growl, and Jenny gave the two of them sidelong glances.

"It's too early for this . . ." her friend moaned.

"You guys didn't go to bed last night, did you?"

"Not really, I mean I had a bit of sleep," Nifry said through a yawn.

" _I_ didn't," Leslie grouched, although the signs weren't at all obvious. She didn't think veela _could_ get under eye circles, so it was simply in the way she held herself. The two of them shared a look before they beamed at one another. Their drowsiness was worth it.

Jenny pursed her lips and cocked her head, "Is there something I'm missing . . . or?"

"We'll tell you later," Leslie said and waved around the classroom. It was Defence Against the Dark Arts, and it was one of the only classes they shared with the Slytherin's so it went doubly so that they'd have to wait.

As it was, Nifry had grown quite used to their hazing of her, but the longer it went on, apparently more people became involved. Usually Hufflepuff's just stuck to their own and kept wary of bullying, especially when it was done by the snakes, except this time she'd started to notice the way the upperclassmen started to treat each other. The way those in her house started to regard the green house with more disdain as the days passed.

She didn't believe for one second it was because _she_ was being bullied they were starting to care, but it was a bit shocking to note that this whole issue of her being bullied was becoming something of House War. There had even been talks during dinner time about how to get back at those in Slytherin. It'd been Mariah Clearwater to really champion the idea.

"Alrighty," Jenny shrugged.

Her attention span in DADA was actually a lot better than in some classes, they discussed a bunch of creatures she already knew loads about, and so it was a somewhat easy O. It was the spells that would sometimes get her, but she was pulling along with the help of her roommates, which was all she could really ask for.

"What is the most dangerous creature known to wizardkind?" Professor Mcnaught asked the class, and Nifry raised her hands almost at the same time a certain dark haired someone did. She gritted her teeth and waited for their teacher to pick one of them.

"Black?" He asked, and she sighed. Leslie gave her a sympathetic look.

"The nundu," he said, and their eyes caught each other. Merlin, he was an idiot.

The professor opened his mouth to speak, but Nifry found herself cutting in, "No it's not, I would know, I grew up with one." Everyone turned to her. She blushed and almost wanted to disappear into her chair, but Mcnaught looked at her with a considering glance.

"Go on, Miss Scamander."

"Although he's somewhat right to assume that's the case, a nundu is only ever dangerous when it's misplaced, mistreated, and abused by _us_. In any record case of death by nundu that yes, ranges in the thousands, there has always been an underlying cause of abuse or mistreatment to the creature that caused it's response. It's so rare that the last known _large_ attack to date was in the 1800s. So no, it's not dangerous to us unless we become a danger to them.

"I've had the privileged experience of growing up with one. His name was Jenson and he was a sweetheart, despite the fact he'd been abused earlier in his life. And might I add that just because a creature is strong doesn't mean it's a threat to us. A more suitable answer would have been a lethifold, or perhaps even a dementor." Nifry paused, looked at Black for a moment who looked back at her before she said, "Or maybe even an inferius. They are darker creatures, after all."

She didn't know why she added the last one. They weren't as dangerous as the others she listed, and yet she'd felt compelled to.

And for more reasons she couldn't fathom, she felt a little sick for saying it looking right at him.

After class Nifry and her friends had to hurry as quickly as possible to get out the door. Why? Because each of them had seen the glare Black and _his_ friends had sent their way, and they just knew things were about to go down.

"Why'd you have to incite them?" Jenny hissed, and Nifry rolled her eyes just as they crossed the boundaries of the large door. They were speed walking down the hall when they heard someone cry out from behind them.

"Hey!" Someone called out. Nifry looked back to see Dylan Rickery with the head of a badger growling at Jacob Runcorn, a Slytherin in Black's posse.

"Looks like a badger, smells like a badger," Runcorn snided with a grin just as a few of her fellow Hufflepuffs were starting to crowd around to help Dylan. "Oh look! It's a badger."

She watched as the Slytherins also grouped up and then they were laughing at the lot of them. Feeling irritated as well as increasingly tired, she motioned for her friends to leave the scene, but they were locked in the hall by the number of kids in their way. There were Ravenclaws and Gryffindors hanging back, but they didn't seem too in a hurry, just watching the show go down.

"Ugh, we should have gotten out while we could have," Jenny grumbled and then glared at Nifry like she was the cause of their missed opportunity.

"It's not her fault they're a bunch of gits," Leslie murmured and pressed her hand at Nifry's back.

Jenny pursed her lips and gave the both of them a considering look, "I suppose not."

"You're not allowed to transfigure a person! Professor McGonagall is going to hang you by your ears for that!" That was said by Amanda Lin who stood next to Dylan with her wand out trying to fix him.

"Oh whatever, she'll be proud I can do it," Runcorn said with his face jutted out to the air, "Unlike you badgers, us Slytherin can cast a spell."

Amanda glared, her crescent eyes narrowing to thin lines, and her cheeks puffing with rage. "You think we're so weak, don't you?" she ground out.

"Obviously," Evan Rosier scoffed. "We're smarter, better, and—"

And then Rosier disappeared.

Nifry blinked. They all blinked.

"Jenny?" Leslie whispered quietly, as if afraid to break the silence, and then she shouted, "Jenny that was awesome!"

The girl in question stood with her wand out and her face screwed up into one of contempt. She was looking at the small creature on the ground between Black and Runcorn's feet. A few girls started to scream, and then all hell broke loose.

She didn't know who was the first to hex someone, she hadn't caught it, but within seconds the hallway became a burst of energy as everyone started to fling whatever they could at one another. The battle might have only lasted for a minute for all she knew, but it seemed to go on for forever.

It was surprisingly Black who was the voice of reason throughout the fight.

"Evan! We have to look for Evan!" he cried out, and the friends closest to him went around casting spells and looking at the ground, careful of their footwork so as not to actually crush the kid. The herd of children around them stampeded and if Nifry hadn't had the training she did with the sorts of creatures she had, she wasn't sure if she'd have made it out of there with Rosier safely in her hands.

There he squeaked at her in anger and struggled from her fingers, but she simply rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Do you _want_ to die?" she asked pointedly and thrust him out to the crowd. He went still, and she smiled before bringing him to her chest. When she did, she looked down at her hands and Rosier looked back at her with a look in his eyes that spoke of fear, and she didn't know what to do with him.

Nifry ducked just in time to avoid a hit from someone and squawked in outrage as she tripped on the floor. Worried for her charge she brought him closer to her face to inspect him before cushioning him between her robes for safety. She looked around for an opening and thanked her lucky stars she was so tiny as she found a slight gap where the people were thinned out. She shuffled on her knees and brushed Rosier's fur to calm him.

"It's okay, Rosier, we'll be alright," she murmured to him and then sighed in double relief when she was through. She'd lost her friends in the scuffle, but that was okay. They were a lot better dualists than she was, especially because they'd been helping her deflect things for months.

She found a tiny alcove to hide herself and sat behind the thick curtains in front of a window.

Rosier pushed himself free from her robes and pried her hands open so he could sit on them. He was kind enough not to bite her as they waited for the chaos to stop.

They both seemed to slump in relief when they heard the tell tale voice of Professor McGonagall call out, "Children!"

They were saved.

An hour later everyone was sorted, Dylan's head was back to normal, and all of the other injured children were being looked after by Madam Pomfrey. Nifry's knees had been cut open when she'd fallen down so she was included as well, but mostly she was searching for a teacher to fix Rosier.

She'd been waiting for the anger to fizzle out by their Transfiguration teacher so she'd been hanging back and letting everything go on. Rosier hadn't been too much of a pest, despite what he currently was. He'd even let her stroke his fur without any nonsense that sometimes she forgot that the mouse was an actual person.

"Professor McGonagall?" she called when she saw the woman talking to a concerned group of Slytherins. She noticed it was Black and the rest of them. Ugh, she didn't want to have to deal with their lot, but the sooner she had Rosier returned to them, she could be free to continue her day.

Their transfigurations teacher swiveled elegantly to see her, "Ah, Miss Scamander," her eyes caught little Rosier in her hands and her mouth thinned into a line. "I see you have Mister Rosier in hand."

"I-I didn't want him to get crushed," she said as way of explanation and couldn't meet the older woman in the eyes anymore. She looked at the ground, and on instinct she started to pet Rosier again. She longed for her owl or a fluffy kneazle to hold.

"What a joke, they were probably planning this." Runcorn grouched to Black. Black nodded, his eyes watching Nifry with a darkness to them.

"It just so happens to be _her_ who had him all along," Stephen Yaxley grumbled back. She gritted her teeth, she _could_ hear them after all. They just had to think it was a trick, not that someone could just be a decent enough of a human being to save their friend. Her chest puffed up, and she refused to let them take her pride away from helping someone.

"Well set him down, Niffella," McGonagall instructed her and Nifry did so right on the ground almost immediately. It was with an easy flick of the woman's wrist, her wand in hand that the mouse Nifry had just been holding became a boy once again.

Rosier looked back at Nifry for a single moment, an indiscernible expression on his face before he fixed on a glare and headed off towards his friends.

She sighed and supposed she should do the same.

* * *

The news of their battle traveled around the school, and before they all knew it the days before Christmas break housed a series of fights all across the Houses that quickened like wildfire. It'd seemed the badgers had had enough of the snakes, and vice versa as they each plotted new ways to take each other out.

The teachers tried their best to calm the others, they started punishing the more obvious players, but where one fell, another rose to take their place.

It was the strangest thing to happen in Hogwarts history, as the Hufflepuffs had always been the mediators between the Houses; they'd been expected to keep the peace and uphold the good and rationale of the school entirely. Just and loyal, and unafraid of toil.

Now, they were renowned for their strength and perseverance, as well as the unexpected pierce of their bite.

It was a blessing when winter break arrived.

* * *

 **A/N:** Heyyo! It's been a minute since I updated this. I hope you guys like the new cover I drew for this story, it features Nifry, her owl Filibus and her namesake, a niffler you'll be meeting in the next chapter! Hope you guys enjoyed! Please let me know what you think c:


	7. Home, Sweet Home

**Home, Sweet Home**

* * *

She was all jittery and excited as she stepped off the train and onto the platform where she searched the crowd of parents for her own, her thick suitcase in one hand and her owl's cage in the other. With a renewed energy she jumped and jumped to look over the heads of taller people, until she saw her father with the widest grin waving her over.

Nifry felt laughter bumbling out as she made quick work to get to them, to where her mother awaited with open arms. She jumped into them, and her mother grunted underneath her weight.

"My girl! Have. You. Gotten. Bigger?" Tina Scamander asked and cradled Nifry in her arms as she kissed the crown of her head over and over again in between her words. Nifry giggled and pretended to fight her mothers hold, but really she was soaking in her warmth and smell. She'd missed them both so much! The scent of her mother's perfume and unmistakable grip of her strong arms.

Newt pushed in. "Don't hog her, I've missed her more!"

"As if," Tina teased, and then the three of them were hugging each other and laughing at one another.

Nifry was giddy with joy, at finally being home.

It was later as they all sat down to enjoy some ice cream at Fortescue's and talk before they headed home that they gave her some rather surprising news.

"We've got a new place," Newt started as he licked at his chocolate mint cone. Nifry's eyes bulged in surprise. They hadn't mentioned that at all in their letters. "It's in Dorset."

She blinked. "A place to stay, stay?" The idea of her parents staying in one area for long was a mind boggling one for her. As a family they'd always traveled around, heeding the calls of others to take in magical creatures with rehabilitation and later release in mind. She couldn't count how many different countries she'd been to and they'd lived out of a suitcase between the three of them.

Newt took his free hand and placed it over his daughter's, a sincere smile on his face. "Your mother and I are retiring from the old work, you see."

"Eh?" She sat there open mouthed and shocked. "But why?"

He chuckled. "We're getting old, Niffler, we can't keep doing it."

Her brows scrunched and she nearly dropped her ice cream on the floor. Old? They weren't old. She looked them over and noticed for near the first time the wrinkles in their skin, and the white of their hair. Tina's was still a dark grey, but it was obvious how tired the two were.

She conceded that, but, "What about the animals? And the suitcase?"

"Arty will be taking care of it," Tina replied and eyed her daughters reaction.

Nifry lit up like a lomos. "ARTY?" She bounced in her chair and Newt had to steady her hand with her ice cream in it so it didn't fall. Her face was hurting with her grin, and she had to force herself to breath so she wouldn't just pass out right there. "He's back!?"

Newt hushed her a bit, mindful of the people around them and nodded empathetically.

"Your brother and his wife are done with their time in Romania, so yes, he's back." Her mother had a bit of moisture in her eyes, but dabbed it away. "They have a surprise for you when we get home."

"Wait they're already here?" Nifry asked and at her dad's nod, she laughed. "Then why aren't we on our way! Let's go! Let's go!"

Her parents chuckled, and at her behest they finished their ice cream, Nifry having to keep reminding them of home when they kept slowing down. After what felt lihavingrnity, they then asked Mr. Fortescue to borrow the shops fireplace to floo in. Nifry hated magical transportation if she were honest; she much preferred muggle trains and cars, mainly because she was prone to sickness when she ever apparrated with her parents, and portkeys just didn't agree with her in any way. Neither did flooing, but she would take soot in her mouth to intense vomiting any day.

Her mother went first, repeating their destination to Nifry over and over for her to memorize. She looked at Newt wondering if he was next or she was, and he handed the powder bag towards her.

"Go on, Niffler," her father told her as she eyed the fireplace uneasily. Ugh. She tossed her handful of powder into the flames and stepped in and carefully enunciated the address.

She was coughing as she came out from the other end and waving the smoke and grit away from her when she felt her body connect with something solid.

"Nifry!" She blinked at the voice, denying who it could be as her heart beat faster and the grin exploded onto her face.

"Aunt Queenie!?"

She couldn't feel any happier than in that moment as her vision cleared, the moisture in her eyes thickening with emotion. Nifry was wrapped into a tight hold as Queenie pulled her away from the fireplace and towards the rest of the family where she looked up from the crook of her aunts arm to see not only her brother, but practically everyone else.

"Is this a family reunion?" she coughed out.

"Of sorts," Newt said, coming up from behind her.

Nifry wasted no time spotting each one of her family members and taking note. Apparently they'd all been waiting for their arrival. She eyed Arty and Vanessa, his wife, and a few of her cousins who were loitering around talking to each other. In and around the house she could hear others, possibly even her second cousins, the ones closer to her in age playing around. When the sound of laughter from somewhere up above traveled through the walls she knew they were and she grinned. This Christmas was going the best one yet!

Then there was Uncle Jacob, Queenie's husband, sitting in the seat nearest the fireplace and Nifry nearly jumped his withering form right then and there the moment she laid eyes on him. She hadn't seen everyone in what felt like _ages,_ but he especially was a sight for sore eyes.

Being so close, she could still smell the delectable baked goods scent he always carried around with him everywhere he went, even if he wasn't baking. With the nostalgia came old memories of her sitting in his lap as a little girl, listening to him prattle on about days gone by. Idle things like what his cousins used to tease him about when he was as small as her, about how his mother used to smack him in the back of his head when he was being an idiot. She could even recall the same smells and the feelings she'd had then. Recalled the scratchiness of the tailored vest he wore, and the warmth of his hands running up and down her back.

Merlin, she'd missed them.

And now she was about to cry.

"Oh, honey," Queenie murmured, and sat down on the couch besides Uncle Jacob, pulling her in with them. Nifry immediately pressed her face into her aunt's chest to hide her tears, but the harder she kept them at bay, the worse they became.

"I-I—," Nifry struggled to get out, "I've missed you!"

"Oh, sweet girl," Queenie murmured.

"Here, pass me my girl, Queenie," Jacob said, and Nifry went willingly into his arms, laying her legs across her aunts and the rest of her across Jacob's form. She looked up at him wondering if he was about to do something, and then he poked her in the nose with a short laugh. "It's so red, you could be a reindeer."

"No it ain't!" Nifry barked out, and then she started giggling too. Her tears dried quickly, and the bittersweet tears she'd just had were gone, replaced by the light fuzziness of love.

"Ain't ain't a word, Niffler," Newt shot at her coming over to shuffle the wood in the fireplace. It was all cozy and warm despite the chill of the outside. She cocked her head towards a window and could see the snow piling along the shelf of it.

Nifry was more of an autumn girl, but she did like winters as well. Not all of them featured most of her family in one building, but enough of them did that she could say winter was a _close_ second. (She was born in autumn so it _had_ to be her favorite.)

"You said it too," she told him, and kicked her leg out at his butt in retaliation. He caught her foot just as it would have connected. They shared identical cheeky grins before he then took to unlacing her boots and setting them in front of the fire to dry.

"Vanessa, Carrie, can you check on the other kids?" Tina called, "I don't want them breaking anything too soon."

"Of course, Mrs. Scamander," Nifry heard Vanessa say.

"Oh please, Vanessa, call me mom. Or mum, whichever suits you."

"Yeah, you've been in this family, what, a year?" Carrie, also known as Caroline, chided. "It's time to lighten up, sweetheart. We aren't about to eat you, although if we were I'm sure you'd be very tasty. Not enough for all of us, but tasty." Caroline was Nifry's cousin and had a weird sense of humor. She was her aunt's first born and she liked to remind everyone of this. She was in her early forties but didn't look a day over thirty. It was probably because she worked in skin care and other magical makeup appliances, always trying to look her best and be it, too.

Joseph was her younger brother, and was putting a few boxes underneath a Christmas tree. He worked in MACUSA as some sort of congressman, she wasn't sure what really. He took mostly after Queenie in appearance, blond and tall with a wiry body and a handsome face that he definitely used in his politics. Carrie was beautiful, too, and she was short the same way Uncle Jacob was, as well as slightly chubby in the face with ample curves men stared at when they were in public. Nifry didn't used to notice, but she started to last year while they were visiting New York.

"Mom!" Nifry heard from somewhere in the house. It was Julie, Joseph's daughter.

"She's in the kitchen!" Joseph called back at the same time a woman called, "In the kitchen!"

Julie came into the living room, where they all sat anyways with a harried look holding two pieces of inconspicuous wood in her hands. Juliette Kowalski was blonde haired and blue eyed, just like her mother and father, and was also very pretty, she was also very tall for her age. Willowy and thin. Almost like a model in some kind of muggle magazine.

Nifry had always thought of Julie as a very cool big sister. It had been the role she'd always taken when Nifry visited so it's how she always saw her as. It's probably what Julie always had to do when dealing with her younger cousins. She was the sort to take charge and she took no prisoners while she was at it.

She was the big sister Nifry had always wanted. Julie who knew loads and tons about everything and had boyfriends, and could do anything she put her mind to. That hadn't changed, and Nifry still looked at the girl with something akin to awe but not quiet.

"Matt broke my wand," she gritted out, working her jaw furiously. "Can I kill him?"

"After dinner, say hello to your cousin first," Joseph said, patting down his pants and fishing out a cigarette from his pockets. Carrie threw up her hands, and Tina rolled her eyes as Carrie and Vanessa rushed out to find Matthew and James, Carrie's twin boys. They were older than Nifry by two years but they still acted like eight year olds.

"Ah, ah, ah!" Queenie chided, pointing her fingers at her son. "No smoking, Joseph, or I'll have you by your ears. If you must, do it outside."

"Hello, Nifry," Julie said at the same time her father gave his mother the stink eye and slid his cigarettes back into his pockets. "What time is dinner?"

"Six thirty," Newt answered, taking a seat in one of the recliners. "And I can take you to get a new wand later this week if you wish. Mr. Ollivander's opens on wednesday."

"Hello, Julie," Nifry greeted.

"Thank you Uncle Newt!" Julie chimed, and then proceeded to glare daggers at her father.

"What do you expect from me, Jules?"

It was Julie's turn to throw her hands up in exasperation before she headed out of the room.

"Is Uncle Theseus here, too?" Nifry asked.

"No, he and Aunt Leta couldn't make it." Newt said gently and Nifry shrugged, turning her body into Jacob's chest. It wasn't like she expected it, Uncle Theseus was always busy training future Auror's, and Nifry had no clue what Leta did.

"Nifry you need to eat more, you're skin and bones," Queenie told her, poking at her legs.

"I eat all kinds!" Nifry challenged, facing her family and wondering when was it that Arty had slipped out. "Leslie says I have a high metab-metabolim?"

"Metabolism. And who is this Leslie, hmm?" Tina asked.

"She's my roommate, and she's my best friend," Nifry said, and her cheeks heated up with warmth. She'd never had a friend to talk about with her family before.

"Sounds like a real charmer," Newt replied with a twinkle in his eye. "Maybe you could invite her over some time."

Nifry slipped off her Aunt and Uncle in her excited as she jumped up, "I can!?"

"Of course, when you see her next you can talk about it with her. Gives us dates, don't just surprise us. "

"Ok!" She was all jittery again, which reminded her. "Where's the suitcase? I want to visit _everyone_ and I want to meet the Honey Oats." The Honey Oats were a group of bowtruckles they'd rescued from trees being demolished by muggles. They'd been deemed Honey Oats because their trees had sported a bunch of bee hives that had terrorized the muggles before they were removed.

If Nifry hadn't been so sad about the trees being cut down, she would have had laughed at the retelling of it when she'd first read it in the letter, but she couldn't. It was no laughing matter.

"Arty has it—oh, where has that boy went," Tina grumbled.

"I'll look for him," Nifry said. "I can look around the house while I'm at it."

"Good idea," Tina told her and as Nifry crossed her side, she kissed the crown of her head as she passed.

The house was two stories and wide. It was a bit old fashioned looking, something from her parents golden age. It was lit by candles rather than light bulbs like most modern homes but most things in her life were like that. From what she could see of the house it wasn't entirely finished being decorated, but it still felt like home, mainly because she could smell her parents and her family members everywhere, and the candles being burned where the scented ones her mother liked.

Nifry adored the amount of windows there were around the house. It was getting darker even though it was around four or five if she had to guess, it being winter. The dipping sunset awashed the candlelit rooms with purples and blues. It made everything look beautiful. Like something out of a winter wonderland.

Outside she could see a vast amount of snow being hit by the light of the sun in just a way that it looked like sparkling crystals were lining the landscape. For a moment, Nifry stood there and watched it, unsure if she even wanted to look away.

It was magic.

"It's uh, it's quite beautiful, huh?" she heard from behind her and she screeched in surprise and nearly fell over.

"Arty! You scared me!"

Her brother didn't look at all sorry, rather he had on a small grin that reminded her of their father. Nifry took after their father the most in appearance, although her facial structure was a bit rounder than his sharp ones. They shared the same reddish brown hair that her mother liked to call copper, and their green blue eyes. Arty on the other hand took the most after Tina. His hair was neigh black, and his eyes were a nice brown that shown gold when the light hit it. Despite taking after their mother, he could definitely pull off their dad's facial expressions.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking like he was trying not to laugh.

Nifry wanted to hug him, but the thing about their relationship was that their skinship was rather rare. It wasn't on Nifry's part. She used to beg him to play with her all the time when she was little, but their ages were just too far apart. He'd been fifteen when she was born, and was busy finding his place in the world while she had been struggling with hers.

She was sure he hadn't liked her in the least when she was little. She used to throw fits like no other when he ignored her, so she could see why, but she'd always idolized him anyways.

"Dad told me you wanted in the suitcase?" he asked and she nodded vigorously.

He waved her to follow him down the stairs and to what she suspected was his and Vanessa's bedroom. It was mostly bare, a bed, a dresser, and a vanity with a few portraits on the walls and that was it.

"Tell me about Romania," she asked when he sat the suitcase down on the floor.

"Well it's beautiful, especially around this time of year. Some of the dragons get a bit testy, but we deal," he paused, then winced. "Dealt."

"You're not going back?" She asked just as she stepped off the ladder.

"I'm sure mom and dad filled you in on everything," he said eying her as he flipped a few hanging sheets away from them and waited for her to pass. She jumped in joy when she spotted the hippogriffs.

And then she stopped dead when she spotted the thestrals. "Since when did we get those?"

"Get what?" he asked sharply.

"T-those," she pointed to the winged beasts, and one took notice of them, turning its head and meeting Nifry's stare. Her breathing shuddered. Why could she see them? It wasn't like she'd seen _real_ death. She'd seen vision de—.

"Nifry," Arty grabbed at her shoulder and pulled back. She hadn't even realized she'd been walking towards them. "Why can you see them?"

"Why can you?" she shot back, uncomfortable with explaining. "And why didn't mom and dad tell me you guys had thestrals?"

"A friend of mine died of cancer," Arty explained, his jaws clenched looking down at the ground. "And they aren't ours to keep, after the holidays Nessa and I are taking them to Hogwarts."

She would have said something cheerful about him coming to Hogwarts, but she was still thinking about his friend. Nifry pressed her hand to her heart, and she felt sadness for her brother, but she had to ask, "What's cancer?" Her voice was quiet in respect for the dead.

"It's a muggle sickness," his voice was quieter, and he was looking straight at her, making her a bit uncomfortable.

"Oh."

They stood there silently for a moment, and she looked back at the thestrals. For all the creatures they'd handled throughout her lifetime, those winged horses weren't one of them. Maybe when she was a baby, but you acquired thestrals mainly for the purpose of breeding or using for transportation, which they hadn't needed. They were also elusive and rarely needed rescuing. Really people were usually too afraid to go near them, taking them as bad signs. Like crows and muggles.

"I didn't think it would count for me," she whispered. Arty cocked his brow at her, and she found herself describing just a few of her dreams for her brother. He'd shared with her something, so she could only do the same.

"Oneiromancy?" Arty asked, after he listened and he started to rub at his chin in consideration.

"What's that?" she asked for the second time.

"It's divination through dreams, and I'm not one bit surprised to hear it."

It was her turn to be particularly surprised. "You aren't?" Her voice squeaked at the end of it.

"No, not at all. You were . . . you were four when you told me to look after him. Said his days were numbered. I suppose you don't remember, but I do. After he died . . . well at the time it scared me so badly I couldn't look at you for weeks." He wasn't looking at her now, but she was certainly looking at him.

Her eyes were wide, surprise didn't even begin to cover what she felt.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, and reached to take her brothers hand.

"It's alright."

* * *

After the two came up from the suitcase it was already dinner time by the look of Vanessa coming into the room just as they stepped out.

"Dinner?" Arty asked, his face softening like butter when she smiled up at him and nodded. He leaned down to give her a not so chaste kiss to which Nifry feigned sickness all over the floor. Vanessa laughed and pulled away with a wave towards her.

"Enough, Art. Your sister is watching."

"Later then," he conceded sending her some type of look to which her skin colored a lovely rose color.

"You guys are making me lose my appetite," Nifry grumbled, trying to look at the floor. She was used to her parents show of affections towards one another. Seeing her brother and his wife was an entirely different story.

"I'm sorry, Little Niffler," Arty said, and smothered her hair in her face, mussing it up with his hand. She retaliated by kicking her foot into his shin, to which he didn't even grunt. "Now you can't see it."

"Arty!" His chuckle and Vanessa's laughter filled the hallway as they left as a group to head into the dining room. She was busy fixing her hair when she spotted the cousins she hadn't seen yet.

"Hey Nifry, is Harry around?" Matt asked and Nifry looked at her feet, hoping he'd let it go.

"Who's Harry?" Vanessa asked unbeknownst to Nifry's wanting to be swallowed up by a hole.

"He's her friend, the only friend she has." James put in.

"I can see why," Matt muttered, looking from her mussed hair down to her feet. If he kept staring and talking she was gonna shove it between his legs. She'd been told by Leslie that it was a soft spot for lads.

"Let it go," she forced out. "That's old news, I haven't even mentioned him in forever."

"She's just embarrassed she has a muggle ailment called an imaginary friend. My mom said kids with no friends make them up so they aren't all alone," Matt told Vanessa who looked concerned.

"It's not a muggle ailment, Matt," Vanessa replied gently, and applied her hand to Nifry's shoulder. "I had one too when I was real little."

Nifry looked up in surprise. "You did?" Matt and James echoed her and they were all looking at the older girl with rapt attention.

"Well, most children aren't raised with dragons, and I wasn't really around children my age until I went to school so I had a friend named Silvia who I used to play with."

"Was she real? Could you see her?" James asked.

"In my heart she was real, let's leave it at that," Vanessa replied. She then shared a secret grin with Nifry who sent back a tentative one herself.

Nifry felt a little less weird as they headed into the dining room where the "old" folk and Julie were. She'd never heard of another person that wasn't magical having the same issues as she did when she was little. Matt and James hadn't ever understood when she'd talked about Harry, and about two years ago she'd simply stopped uttering the name aloud. She didn't remember much about her "imaginary friend", just that he hadn't ever been someone she saw while she was awake.

He'd been her dream friend. Someone she followed around and watched while he was with his own friends; she'd seen his beginning, and she'd seen his end. Really, when she'd internalized it and had realized that he might not have been as real as she liked to believe, he became something much like an old story character you knew so well you could flip to the next page and know what exactly would be said. As a child, she certainly had felt a little less lonely with him in it, and of course she'd told her family all about him.

Again, she'd learned not to.

It was fuzzy, but she could recall how worried her family had been that she was talking to a strange boy, and that that strange boy "told" her all sorts of things. Not that she could remember most of it. She wished she could. She'd simply been too young to understand a whole lot of it. She knew she had a journal she'd kept of the events, but it was probably written in chicken scratch and hidden somewhere.

For dinner, Nifry was sat beside Aunt Queenie and Julie who apparently had gotten over her anger with her father and was now staring daggers at her plate.

"Now don't mope, Jules. It doesn't become you," Mary chided her daughter.

Mary was Joseph's wife and as beautiful as any classic woman could be. She was the sort you saw on the hand of powerful men, her neck adorned with the prettiest gems and her body tucked into beautiful dresses. Nifry supposed her cousin Joseph was a powerful man, again he was a politician for MACUSA, but she didn't have a clue how powerful.

He was always such a bum when around family it was hard to imagine, but she had seen photos of the three of them in newspaper articles that were sent to her parents as a sort of brag from Queenie. Things like _Congressman Kowalski and his two favorite girls_ , and whatnot. As if he was a celebrity. Maybe he was. She didn't know.

"Why is she upset?" Arty asked once everyone was seated.

"Oh, because she was caught trying to use magic. She knows it's not allowed, but she tried anyways. It's why Matt was trying to get her wand from her and broke it," Mary answered. It caused Julie to glare harder at her plate. Nifry wanted to console Julie but she was afraid the girl wouldn't go with it.

"That's not at all true," Julie ground out. "The little shit wanted to see if he could use it since Aunt Carrie had their wands confiscated."

"Language!" Mary gasped, and Julie rolled her eyes.

"What? It's what he is and he knows it." Nifry found herself nodding and caught herself.

"Then explain the way a lady would," Mary scolded. "Don't talk like a sailor, only those cut from bad breeding speak that way and I've raised you better."

"Matt did you lie to your Aunt Mary?" Carrie was whispering to her son who had been grinning until his mother confronted him.

"If you want I can throw a hex at him," Nifry whispered to Julie, "I still have Frankie."

"Who's Frankie?"

"My wand."

"Of course it is," she muttered.

Nifry cocked her head at her and gestured to her side where her holster was kept. Julie shook her head, but spared her a smile nonetheless.

"Jules, lift your head, and don't slouch," Mary continued. "This is Christmas Eve dinner and you don't want to make this family feel uncomfortable, do you?"

Julie looked like she wanted to do anything but that, but grumbled and released a hefty breath. "I'm seventeen in two weeks, mom, you can't keep treating me like this."

"I _can_ keep treating you like this, _because_ you're turning seventeen. How would you live without me? You don't even know how to open up a bank account on your own."

"Speak for yourself, you're the one who should teach me these things!"

"Uh . . ." Uncle Jacob started, but the two went on after each other despite the awkward and intense feeling in the room. It was obvious Mary couldn't read it, and obvious Julie could but didn't care.

"Ladies!" Joseph rang out, and the two paused to look at him. "Mary stop badgering her, it's Christmas. We're only here for a few weeks and then we leave. Let's make the most of it, please? And Julie, your Uncle Newt already told you we were getting you a new wand, so chin up, buckoo. Also, Carrie if you don't do something about your son's behaviour, I'll do something about it myself."

Carrie sat back appalled at that statement, followed by Mary deflating under her husband's hard stare, and Julie pausing to consider him.

"Alright," Julie said, and then crossed stares with Matt who looked a tad bit frightened. Her stare promised him many things, and from the look of it, mainly future pain. James gulped, looking at his brother with worry.

"Is Christmas with your family always like this?" Vanessa whispered to Arty.

"No, sometimes there's fire."

"Then it's a lot like mine," she said, and her face lit up in the way it usually didn't as they stared at one another.

"And with that note," Tina stood up and waved at the dishes lining the table. They had yet to dig in. "As I'm aware, Arty, Vanessa, you have something to tell us?"

The couple stood up, and Nifry noted how shaken they both looked.

"Well, mom is right. Nessa and I have something to share with you all," Arty started, staring down at his wife in a way that made Nifry's chest hurt for all kinds of reasons.

Vanessa cleared her throat delicately. "We're pregnant."

And on that note the room's tense atmosphere was replaced quickly with the joy and applause of the whole family.

"Atta boy!" Uncle Jacob hollered, and Newt had this pleased as punch expression on his face, much like his son's. Even Julie's frown had turned upside down. Nifry herself was shaking in her chair with excitement.

"When is it due? Do we know the gender? Ah, we have to think about names!" Came the rush of questions from everyone else. Arty's expression went from pleased to harried, and Vanessa had to sit down from the whiplash, Arty following suit. Vanessa's entire face was red from the attention.

For a while the whole family was abuzz with the news, and it made sense. Their family felt like a large one when they were all together, but when they were all apart in their respective countries it felt small. It had also been eleven years since Nifry's birth, and she'd been the coddled baby of the lot because of that.

 _She_ was excited because she'd never had the pleasure of being around human babies before, only ever magical creatures and she was very curious. Plus she could play games and run around with her niece or nephew, and she could teach them their letters and tell them stories just the way her family had.

Conversation became easier after that as Tina started to serve the meal on the table and everyone dug in.

Nifry felt a tug at her socks though and had to look down in curiosity to see what it was. She blinked in surprise and her smile broadened. Leaning down she reached for his scaly palms and he reached for hers in return. They shook hands and Barry, her little brother niffler, used their linked hands to climb up onto her chair and sit beside her. It was a bit of struggle for him. He was fatter than other nifflers they'd kept, and they'd tried slimming him down with exercise but he was such a lazy bum it was a bit hard to get him to do it in the first place.

The chair was big and easily seated the two of them, and the family was none the wiser. Nifry took to picking her chicken apart and sneaking him bites when he'd waved his hands and licked at his lips. At first she'd hesitated, but she was full and she didn't want the food to go to waste.

It was as she was feeding him though that Queenie looked down and spotted the act.

"Ah, ah, ah. That's why he's so fat and you're so skinny," Queenie chastised.

"Nifry eat your food and stop giving it to Barry," Tina scolded and Nifry tipped her head down with only a small amount of shame.

"But he's hungry, and I'm not," Nifry whined. "And it's Christmas Eve."

"He's down five pounds since you've left and I'm beginning to understand why." Newt was chuckling into his dinner roll, and his eyes twinkled as he looked over at her.

"Exactly, so eat your food and send that rascal away." That was Mary chiming in with the scolding, looking rather repulsed at the sight of the creature.

"But look at his face!"

"Set him down, you'll break your skinny arms and whose fault do you think that will be?" Nifry was struggling to keep Barry up in the air as she showcased him in all his glory and had to admit, that yes, breaking her arms was a possibility. Blowing out a heavy breath she set him down mournfully.

When she did she noticed the glint of something in his pouch and reached despite his flapping hands and pulled it out. It was Mary's necklace she'd been wearing.

"Mary, this yours?" she asked sheepishly. Mary squawked and Joseph started chuckling, but not before Nifry pulled out his MACUSA badge with the shiny plating. His laughter whooped out of him and soon the whole family was laughing over the niffler's antics.

Barry reached for the shiny things in her hands while she dangled it above him, but too bad for him Mary pulled out her wand to levitate the pieces towards her. The put upon sigh he let out even caused Nifry to burst into laughter herself.

Nifry then took the chance of everyone's distraction to slip him a bit more chicken, feeling pity for his sad expression.

When dinner was over they all settled into groups across the house and started catching up further with one another while they all took to cleaning up.

Dessert was a tray set up by Uncle Jacob on the dining table after the dishes were cleared away. Everyone picked at it while the family bustled around the house doing other activities. It was full of assorted treats usually featured in his bakery in New York. Uncle Jacob was retired now, but he always took to cooking for each other the muggle way anyways, and in Nifry's opinion, somehow it tasted more magical made by his loving hands than the easy and quick way of the wizards.

The bakery in New York was still open, apparently there were several open locations around the United States but Nifry had only ever been to the one her family personally ran. Carrie was the one who had taken over the bakery, but she didn't run it in the same way Uncle Jacob and Aunt Queenie had run it. She used magic to do a lot of the work, just so it was a bit quicker and they could meet demands.

Vanessa and Arty had went somewhere with Julie and were hanging out. Joseph, Newt, and Jacob were in the living room chattering away about something or other. Aunt Carrie and her husband Paul were set on distracting the children although Nifry wasn't included in that group. She was helping her mom and Queenie with the dishes and they were teaching her cleaning spells that could be put to good use.

"You're getting taller," Queenie noted while the big pot where the mashed potatoes had been was being scrubbed.

Nifry frowned at that and looked at her aunt hopefully, "Really?"

"Yes, but if you keep forgetting to eat you'll only get shorter," Tina replied in her sisters stead, taking to rubbing at Nifry's crown of hair.

"I don't forget to eat," Nifry grouched, secretly enjoying her mom's hand on her head. "I eat a lot." She picked at her donut shaped into an occamy egg and raised her brow pointedly.

"Right," Tina said suspiciously. She mussed Nifry's hair up and smiled when the dishes were at last done. "Now go meet with your cousins, they've missed you."

Nifry didn't want to though. "They didn't miss me at all, the twins were being mean earlier." She got enough of that at Hogwarts no way was she going to teased when she was _home_.

"You're being teased at school?" Queenie asked and Nifry blanked her mind while she tried to form a barrier between them in her head. Queenie frowned at this and grabbed Nifry's hand to pull her into one of the side rooms beside the kitchen. They sat down on a couch there, and Nifry noted the darkness of the room beside the few candles burning on the walls.

Nifry refused to look at her Aunt and didn't check to see if her mother followed. Something about it just had her clamming up.

"Honey, you're blocking me," Queenie murmured, brushing her fingers against Nifry's jaw and cupping her cheek. "Let me in, sweetheart, please?"

If Queenie wanted to, she could easily get through her walls. Her aunt was a master at legilimency in a way that it was as natural to her as breathing. Nifry had only the basics of training in occlumency, and she certainly couldn't be considered an Occlumens with any real talent. Still, Queenie was mindful sometimes when people didn't want their heads examined.

Nifry contemplated it for the moment, wondered at all of the innards Queenie would be able to see and wanted to reinforce her barriers, but something about the compassion behind her aunts stare caught her. She found herself slipping her hold and opening like a book.

There was a light breeze there in her head, Queenie allowing her to feel it. Her aunt stroked her hand while the two sat there. She wasn't actively thinking about school, but each time she kept telling herself not to think of it, she found it kept surfacing and surfacing.

It was moments later her aunt gasped and her eyes went wide as her hands went to her mouth. "Oh honey!"

"What, what is it?" Tina asked coming from up behind them.

Queenie pulled Nifry pulled her into a tight embrace and she was awashed with fierce protection and love of the woman holding her.

"We have to have a talk," Queenie murmured, looking up at her sister. "You, me, and Newt."

"A-alright?" It was clear her mother had no idea what Queenie was talking about but was backing out of the room to get her father anyways. Nifry wasn't sure if that conversation would include her, but Newt was already walking through with a confused look on his face with Tina followed closely behind.

"What is it?" he asked, and Queenie waved for them to take a seat.

She pulled Nifry away from her and gave her a considering look. "Do you want me to tell them, or should I?"

"Uhm," Nifry wasn't sure what Queenie had even seen. What she was supposed to tell. So she laid it out in a quick breath, "The fact the Slytherins are bullying me and the rest of Hufflepuff? The fact I'm called Elfella 'cause I'm so short and that there's actually a house elf named Bimbly that's taller than me? That those nightmares I've had since I was really little are actually prophetic and that even the Sorting Hat thinks I'm a Seer? That there's a werewolf in school and I slipped into his head in a vision!? Wai—Oops! I shouldn't have said that! It was a secret! Agh!"

She clamped her hand down on her face and tried to blend in with her surroundings, but her parents were staring at her with flat expressions and it was in that moment she wanted to disappear.

If she was really a house elf she could do that. She wasn't.

"Niffler," Newt said after a brief moment, and he moved to sit with Queenie and her on the couch. "Are you sure?"

And she wanted to sink in further.

"She's sure, and I'm sure. The girl is a Seer," Queenie said, her voice was hard in the way she spoke. "I've been telling you this for years, Newton. They aren't night terrors, or imaginary friends, or random things she's come up for attention. These are things your daughter is seeing because she can't help it in the same way I at one point couldn't help being in other's heads."

Newt and Tina were both speechless, staring at her with these odd expressions on their faces. It worried Nifry who didn't have the talent to read minds the way her aunt did.

Queenie huffed in annoyance and turned to her to cup her cheek as she told her, "They only don't believe it because it's a frightening thing, you know? Accepting that they can't control the things you see, or shelter you from the world in the way they want to. You're their precious baby, they don't anything bad to happen to you. And the thing is, they do believe. They believe even though it's hard to admit. Just like you struggled admitting it to yourself."

Tina's eyes were sparkling with moisture, and if Nifry wasn't mistaken so were her fathers.

"I'm so sorry," Tina whispered.

"It's alright, Mom," Nifry croaked, and wiped at the tears that had welled in her own eyes.

It was that night they told her the words she'd been longing to hear, "I believe you." It was all she'd needed.

* * *

Regulus was busy pretending that his parents and Sirius weren't fighting or that Kreacher wasn't going on and on about how spoiled Master Sirius was if he felt he had the right to go against Master and Mistress Black because he certainly wasn't acting what was right of a Black was meant to be. It was all under his breath of course, and Regulus really hadn't felt the need to call him out on it. He rather enjoyed it, actually.

His extended family were piled in the house but he didn't want to talk to anyone, and that's why he sat with their house elf wishing for the life of him to be at Hogwarts where he could at least be doing something.

"Sirius, don't you dare walk away from me!" Walburga intoned and it was deadly in the way she looked at Sirius.

"No thank you, Mum, I can tell where I'm unwanted. I'll just see if the Potter's will have me!" Sirius's shout drew Regulus's gaze and several others his way and he was storming just past him as their stares caught.

The look that passed between them was an odd one.

Regulus couldn't identify whether it was contempt he saw there or just anger, or whatever the hell it was. It was morphing somewhat though as if he was trying to keep it in place, this weird concoction of emotions pinned at his sleeve. It was the most open he'd seen him when it dropped and his older brother just looked sad, as if he was about to cry. Regulus had never seen that on Sirius's face before. It was bizarre, the two conflicting pictures in Regulus's head fighting what he knew of his brother and what he was learning of him now.

For a moment he wondered what was on his own face.

And then he was storming his way to the fireplace to floo where presumably the Potter's lived.

"I don't know what went wrong with that boy," Orion muttered to his wife and Walburga was busy fuming.

Regulus released a pent in sigh. It hadn't even been a day at home.

Home, _sweet_ home.

* * *

 **A/N:** Here's the longest chapter yet, there was a lot to be written and I wanted to get it in one go. Hope you enjoyed!

Also I have no clue, obviously, when Queenie and Jacob would have initially started having kids, neither do I know about Tina's and Newt's plan of action either. I know the movies are taking over a 19 year period and all that shizz, and it ends in 1945, but they're in their forties by that point and I'm not sure if the movies will show their kids, or what their plans for Queenie and Jacob are anyways (meaning if they're a couple or what (they better be, they are perfect for one another (I mean there's gotta be a story behind Jacob and Queenie in that last scene of the movie, did he remember . . .or?))).

No matter what I do, none of what I write is gonna be cannon, so I thought I might as well play with it. If you're from the future and know whats up, take this as an AU. (I'm sure it already qualifies as one.)

That's why Arty, full name Newton Artemis Fido Scamander the Second (I'm unoriginal as all get out, but what can ya do.) was also a late child like Nifry and was conceived in 1946. (I just feel like Tina and Newt are the type to wait to have kids anyways, especially with wars going on.) On the other hand, Queenie and Jacob got started a lot earlier (in my head cannon), and that's why they have grandchildren near Nifry's age.


End file.
